No Hobby For Young Men

So it occurs to me that Red Sox fans are the victims of their own love of the home town team. As a person in the Autograph and Memorabilia hobby, the goal is to get close to the players. However, due the recent success and huge following of the Red Sox, this has become close to impossible. In small markets such as Pittsburgh and San Diego, players travel in the off-season in "Caravans" stopping at local places and signing autographs and meeting fans. And some of these are big name players like Jake Peavy, Trevor Hoffman, etc. Now the reasons the team do this is to drum up support so people will buy more tickets and spend money at the stadium and buy Padres products etc, etc. But because the Red Sox are so popular, the team has no need to sell the Red Sox to the masses, because we're all already buying. There are times when I wish the team was in a re-building phase just so players would be available and willing to meet fans rather than worry that they will be mobbed if they step outside. Of course, having a perennial playoff team is nothing to complain about. But it is well known that the Sox are some of the worst in person autograph signers in the league, and very few of them sign TTM. I was told by Sox minor leaguers that coaches push signing autographs on them because the Major League Players don't sign at all. Part of that is the massive amount of mail I'm sure the major leaguers get as apposed to the small amount minor leaguers get, but the fact remains, that too many people jumped on the Sox bandwagon after 2004, and now the brand is so popular, it's crushing the relationships between the players and fans. That being said, I have been asked numerous times who some of the best TTM signers are on the Sox, and here is the most reliable list I could come up with for current 25-Man Roster Red Sox who sign TTM:
-Manny Delcarmen
-Hideki Okajima
-Nick Green
-Chris Carter
-Javier Lopez
-Justin Masterson
-Takashi Saito (Occasionally)
-Terry Francona
None of these are a guarantee of course, but these guys are usually pretty reliable. Thanks for stopping by!