I've never come across this before in my Orioles collecting and, while I doubt it's completely unique, I think that the extent of the difference might be. Benny Ayala has two completely different autographs. At first, I thought that I was being duped and one of the 'graphs was a fake. Then I read somewhere that Benny has an "A" and a "B" autograph.
I know that most players will give you a different autograph if you ask them as they are walking by you at a game, or if they are doing a paid signing of some sort. They will generally take more care with their signature for a signing, when they have both the time and incentive to give their fans what they want. Many autographs that I get at games are rush jobs, where the player is just trying to sign quickly, or sign for a bunch of people to keep everyone happy, so their autograph isn't quite as nice. But check this out.
"A" Signature
"B" Signature
There isn't a single similarity between the two autographs, at least to my untrained eye. The B signature looks much more like the pre-printed one on the '80 Topps card, while the A signature looks like some alien scrawling. I just don't know what all the squiggles and lines mean. I might see a B and an A in there, but I think I'm just forcing my eyes to make some sense of that craziness.
Has anyone else ever come across something like this with another player?
Does anyone have any more information on why Benny's signatures are so different?
