Muhammad Ali May Have Been The Greatest Autograph Signer, Too

I never saw Muhammad Ali fight, as so many great sports writers paying tribute these past few days did. But I have one very special memory of meeting him in 1974 when I was 13-years-old. That year he ruled the boxing world, defeating Joe Frazier and George Foreman.

Growing up in Scarsdale, I became good friends with the late John Arum, the son of Ali’s longtime boxing promoter, Bob Arum. The older Arum helped coach our grade-school’s baseball team in the Fox Meadow neighborhood. While in Junior High, John invited me to his bar mitzvah, a Jewish boy’s coming of age ceremony.

While we were seated in the temple, Ali picked up a yarmulke at the door and put it on his head as all the other men did that day as their way of honoring God before taking his seat.  Ali performed the act so effortlessly that you would have almost thought he was Jewish, not a devout Muslim. What a reassuring sight to behold, particularly from the perspective of such an ugly political year as 2016.  By appearing and participating, Ali was also showing the Arums what a loyal friend he was.

At some point that day, Ali used a ballpoint pen to sign the back of my card with my table number. (A couple of friends whom I’ve told this story to rib me that it would have been better for him to have signed my game-used yarmulke.) He had beautiful penmanship and was very gracious.

From all accounts, Ali was just being himself. “I have been collecting vintage Ali autographs since the day I met ‘The Greatest’ on December 25, 1988 at a club in Louisville, KY,” writes “butterflyboxing,” an Ali autograph expert, in an eBay guide to Ali autographs. “I saw Ali from across the room, and being a lifetime boxing fan, immediately grabbed a pen and napkin and proceed to approach him to ask for an autograph. I immediately noticed the effects that the onset of Parkinson’s Syndrome had on Ali— even back in 1988. I asked him if he would give me his autograph and handed him the pen and napkin I had in my hand. He asked one of his handlers to come over and Ali took a briefcase from the man. He opened and it took out a glossy photo of himself and then asked me my name. He personalized the autograph, dated it, and then asked me what I wanted him to write as an inscription. I wasn’t sure what to say so I told him to write that he was making a comeback. He did this and then shook my hand.”

On eBay his autographed photos are now selling from $500 to $1000, a healthy price for such a willing signer for so many years and a testament to the enduring popularity of the world’s most famous man. Last year I attended a Heritage auction in New York City. After fierce bidding for two pairs of Ali and Sonny Liston fight-worn gloves from their 1965 bout drove the price to $956,000, the room erupted in applause.

By coincidence, tonight the Smithsonian Channel is airing a terrific episode of Sports Detective featuring, among other characters, a skin diver who’s been searching since 1978 for the Olympic gold medal Ali won in 1960. Ali insisted that he tossed the medal into the Ohio River as part of a civil rights protest. The program had been scheduled months in advance and had been in the works for years. “He was a man with such great pride and always tried to give back to those close to him and strangers alike,” Brian Biegel, its executive producer told me. “To own a piece of his memorabilia is equivalent to owning a tangible link to the remarkable past off… The Greatest.”

Sadly, I lost touch with John Arum in the distant past, only to read about his untimely demise in a hiking accident in Washington State in 2010. And my Ali autograph was stolen from my Brooklyn apartment along with my childhood baseball card collection almost 30 years ago. I’ve long since gotten over the loss because I have a vintage Ali memory I wouldn’t trade for any object in the world.