As a young man in the 1980s and 90s, Jeremy Telford was an avid baseball card collector. He worked jobs around town to fund his collecting habit. Although he yearned to have the large sums required to obtain high-end cards, his budget prevented him from doing so. He was only able to purchase the cheaper cards.
This idea led Telford to start soliciting signatures of the the players he viewed as undervalued. The Beckett book he poured over for the monthly value of his cards, listed team addresses to send such requests. In a practice that was common during this time, Telford would mail cards from his collection to baseball players and include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with the hope that the player would return the signed card. Although several players returned autographed cards to Telford, some never made it back to him including a 1991 Upper Deck Baseball Kevin Reimer.
As time passed, Jeremy Telford went on to play college baseball at Louisiana Tech. He currently owns Dowling's Smokehouse B-B-Q in Ruston, Louisiana. Recently, a visitor came to his restaurant bringing news that an envelope had arrived for him at their house. The visitor had moved into Telford's childhood home 12 years ago and brought an envelope that he recognized as his own. Inside was the Reimer card he'd sent out 20 years before, only now it was signed.
The envelope was postmarked out of Seattle and dated May 21st, 2011. Even though the Reimer is not considered valuable by card standards, Telford said to a reporter, "As far as I'm concerned, it's the best autographed card I have ever received.''
Kevin Reimer had a respectable six-year MLB career, batting .258 with 52 home runs. He played for the Rangers and Brewers.
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