It's really unfortunate that this the autograph situation at this time. Numerous guys have exclusive contracts (and this will only get worse) and "private signings" are becoming the norm. As BrewCrew stated, the days of actually lining up to meet the player and interact with them for a few seconds are coming to an end. I know a few employees at a local sports card store (that I'll keep nameless). The store regularily had 3-4 Brewers/Packers in for signings every year. They had Weeks, Hall, Hart, Sheets, Jenkins, Ahman Green, Donald Drive....all fairly early in their "Wisconsin" careers, for a somewhat reasonable price. In each case, they gave the player X amount of money for X amount of time, and the player in turn would sit the table for that amount of time. They would get an estimated amount of signatures they could sign in that time, then they would sell that many tickets if they could. If time permitted, the store would just get anything they wanted signed. They had Ryan Grant towards the end of his first Packer season, and haven't had anyone since. There are 3 reasons for this: 1. Players are starting to ask for more and more money. He used to make a small profit on the autograph shows, almost all of which would come from merchandise sales, a very small portion, if any from the actual price for the augraph. 2. Players won't agree to the 1-2 hour window anymore, they have a set amount of items they will sign and that's it. This virtually eliminates any chance of a "walk up" auto sale and doesn't really allow the store to get much of it's merchandise signed. 3. Players are now signing exclusive deals with companies for amounts of money that he can't possibly compete with. He had a deal in place during Braun's rookie year, date set and everything and when he faxed over the contract it was never returned because they had been offered a deal to be exclusive (much like Gamel). Last time I talked with him, he pretty much indicated that the store probably won't have anyone significant in for a long, long time. Sure, they can get guys like Gilbert Brown or Carlos Villanueva in, but nobody comes so he stopped trying.