I waited outside the players exit for the visiting team and had two baseballs ready for Hamilton to sign. A few guys came out and headed up the hill toward the sidewalk. The visiting team stays at the Marriot which is directly across the street from Victory Field. I saw two guys come out a few minutes behind them and one of them looked like he may be Billy Hamilton. I started walking toward them and they were walking the other way toward the sidewalk. They were walking kind of fast and seemed to ignore the fans waiting for autographs. I started walking up the hill also and asked one of the fans, "is that Hamilton?" and he said "yeah I think so". He yelled about 20 feet behind him "HEY BILLY..." and got no response. He said "I think he blew us off" and started walking back down the hill toward the stadium.
I decided to find out if it was him or not so I began jogging and eventually caught up with him. He had a pair of headphones on and I walked right next to him and said "Billy?". He took his headphones off and looked at me with a confused look and said "who?". I then said, "Billy Hamilton?" and held a ball and a pen out. He then said "Oh that's not me. I think he's still inside" and pointed back toward the stadium. I looked at him for about 5 or 6 seconds and was pretty sure it was him. I then just said "ok man, thanks.." and began walking back. He then started laughing and yelled back at me "Ok man, I'll get you". I said "really? you are Hamilton?" He then responded "I will sign for you but if anyone asks then you don't know what I look like". I said "Ok man, no problem". He signed an official MLB ball on the sweet spot and an official International League ball on a side panel.
For those of you who pursue prospects, just a warning that Hamilton can be tricky. When I went back toward the stadium there were about 20 people who were waiting for Hamilton and they said "Was that Hamilton?". I showed them the two baseballs and they all kind of shrugged in disappointment. One of the guys asked me if he played the "I'm not Billy Hamilton" card on me and I said yes. He then said that Hamilton does that a lot to get out of signing. I was the only person out of 20-30 people who successfully got Hamilton to sign and I put myself at risk of looking like an idiot to him but I guess that's what it takes sometimes. He seems like if you can prove that you know it's him and there's not many people around then he will sign for you. He could have allowed me to just walk back to the stadium and not signed but he was nice enough to reveal himself because I had went out of my way and knew it was him. This will definitely be something I remember because I feel like I got lucky on this one... Thanks Billy!
