Randy Kaplan is a Long Island real estate lobbyist by day, but on the side he’s a dedicated autograph hunter whenever the UN General Assembly is in town. He’s already acquired 350 signatures from current and former heads of state such as Nelson Mandela and Pope Francis — all on baseballs.

Kaplan’s been collecting autographs since he was a teenager — rock’n rollers, celebrities, athletes, etc. But his signed baseball collection didn’t get off the ground until he saw former President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara at a Houston Astro’s game in 1993. He managed to nab an autograph on a scorecard, but quickly realized he “committed a major error” by not having H.W. sign a baseball. Fast forward to 1996, when he convinced sitting president Bill Clinton to sign one, and boom, The Kaplan Collection was born. (He later managed to get Bush Sr. to sign a ball).

Kaplan calls his hobby “diplomacy through baseball,” and we witnessed him cajole, call out, and shake hands with anyone he thought might be a passing diplomat, searching for that sweet spot to gain access to whichever world leader might be lurking in the wings. This involved a lot of waiting, a lot of staking out, and a lot of explaining the WTF notion of signing a baseball to people who have probably never seen one up close. But to Kaplan, it’s all in a day’s work, and all about getting the next score.

VICE News join Kaplan during the UN General Assembly as he meets the Norwegian Prime Minister for the latest ball-o-graph.

This segment originally aired Sept. 21, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO. 

HBO’s Vice News Tonight followed him around for a special feature that ran late last week. Watch below.

Kaplan is relentless in his quest to get some of the world’s most famous (and not so famous) heads of state.  He has some fun tales to tell about his efforts and his interactions.

His unusual collection caught the attention of NPR.  You can read (and listen to) their interview with him here.

Lino Rulli and Father Dave Dwyer had the call from the Vatican for The Catholic Channel.

“You can actually see that the curtain is about to be pulled back. The window is about to be opened. And let’s take a listen to the name of the next pope.”

Four-thousand miles away, Randy Kaplan, a Jew from Long Island, was in his office in New York — he’s a lobbyist — watching CNN with his boss and a good friend. Randy’s always paying attention when a new head of state is announced.

“To me, that’s my Kentucky Derby or that’s my Super Bowl,” Randy says. “Absolutely.”

For 20 years, Randy has been trying to do something that sounds pretty simple. He wants to get a baseball signed by the pope. And for 20 years, he has failed.

“Very, very hard to infiltrate that inner circle,” Randy says. “I tried every mechanism which I know, and I don’t take no for an answer. So it’s very difficult for me to come to terms with, ‘It’s not going to happen.'”

But this time, Randy wasn’t taking any chances. Knowing that he was unlikely to get a sitting pope to sign a baseball, he instead started requesting signed balls from the cardinals most likely to become the next pope and…

“Before the smoke was rising from the chimney at the Vatican, I probably had about 20 of the cardinals out of about 25 or 30 who had a realistic chance,” Randy says.

Cardinal Bergoglio

Nobody expected Cardinal Bergoglio to be announced as Pope Francis, not even the two Catholic Channel announcers.

“I believe it’s fair to say the world is stunned,” Rulli said.

“This is a stunner,” Father Dwyer said.

But Randy Kaplan had already sent Cardinal Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — a baseball to be signed. It had been returned to sender.

So, Randy still didn’t have a baseball signed by the pope. But he wasn’t about to give up. With help from a friend, who happened to be a cardinal, he sent a couple more baseballs to the pope’s personal secretary. But he wasn’t optimistic.

“Getting the actual pope to sign as pope — that’s hitting the jackpot for autograph collectors,” Randy says.

Randy Kaplan’s not just any autograph collector. His quest is to collect baseballs signed by all of the heads of state and world leaders.

So, how did a guy from Long Island dream up that idea?

A Collector Since Childhood

Growing up in the ’70s, Randy collected the kinds of things kids were collecting back then: wacky package stickers, baseball cards…

“Aurora Monster Model kits, the glow in the dark kits,” Randy says.

“I have no idea what that is,” I say.

“Universal Monsters licensed with Aurora Plastics company in Hempstead, New York, back in the ’60s and ’70s,” Randy explains. “And they were the hottest thing since sliced bread for kids.”

When Randy was in high school, he snuck backstage at rock concerts, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of his idols. And because he was close to Manhattan, Randy met lots and lots of famous people.

“I asked for a couple of autographs here and there throughout, but nothing — nothing crazy,” Randy says.

In April of 1993, things started to get decidedly crazier. Randy was on a business trip to Houston, and he decided to go to an Astros game. The woman sitting next to him mentioned that former President George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife, Barbara, came to games whenever they were in town.

“He was just out of office, a couple of months, and I’ve always been a huge admirer of his,” Randy says. “And I did not think that they would be coming on that particular night, because there was a failed assassination attempt on the former president just a couple of days prior in Kuwait. But, lo and behold, sure enough, after the second inning begins, here comes George and Barbara Bush. And they sit down — literally a row in front of me.

“So I’m, like, ‘This is amazing.’ Because as a kid in my teens and in my 20s, I had met everybody you could imagine — the rock stars, as I mentioned, the sports stars. I was never moved so much as when I met a president. I had him sign my scorecard. And I remember bouncing off the walls.”

A couple of weeks later, Randy was visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and he saw a collection of baseballs – they had all been first pitches thrown by sitting presidents.

“And I said to myself, ‘Oh, my god. What an amazing idea it would be to have presidents and world leaders sign baseballs and start a collection and share it with the world,'” Randy recalls.

The First Signed Baseballs

Randy thought about the idea for three years. He wasn’t quite sure where to begin. Then, in 1996, he was working as the government affairs director for a large trade association, and then-President Bill Clinton came to give a speech.

Randy arrived three hours early. Secret Service agents were still doing their sweep. He got a seat near the front. As soon as the talk was over, he hopped into the receiving line.

“And I accomplished my goal. I got my baseball signed by Bill Clinton,” Randy says. “It was wonderful. It was a great way to start.”

“Tell me the story of how you got the Gorbachev ball,” I say.

“Ah, god, this is a wonderful story,” Randy says.

It was 1996, five years after the Soviet Union dissolved. Gorbachev had written a memoir and scheduled two book tour stops in the United States.

“So I knew I had to get to the book signing early,” Randy says. “I also knew that I needed a trick up my sleeve, because security was gonna be extremely tight.”

Luckily, Randy’s landlord was Russian. Randy asked him to write out a Russian phrase – phonetically — on the back of a business card. Randy brought the card with him to the book signing.

“And I practiced all morning,” Randy says. “As I approached the table, Mr. Gorbachev smiled. And as he’s signing the book, I pull the baseball out. Security jumped on my arms to take the baseball away and push me away.”

Through all the commotion, Randy kept speaking directly to the former Soviet leader.

“The concept was, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Would you be kind enough to sign my baseball and take a photograph with me?'” Randy recalls. “President Gorbachev stood up, pushed the security guard out of the way, retrieved the baseball from my hand, signed it, stood up and bowed to me and sat down. I was so proud of that.”

Randy says getting Gorbachev to sign one of his baseballs so early in his quest really gave him the momentum to keep going.

“You’re not partisan with this at all, are you?” I ask.

“Absolutely not,” Randy says. “Republican, Democrat, Communist, Independent — it doesn’t matter. I don’t even think about politics when I pursue my collection. My mantra and my motto is ‘diplomacy through baseball.'”

Randy hopes one day his collection will be displayed at the headquarters of the U.N., and he wants people who see it to understand that we may have disagreements, but that we all live on the same planet. And countries that feel like they’re on the other side of the world, well, they’re really not far away at all.

“And this way we can get the world to come together and hopefully be a better place,” Randy says. “‘We have different ideology, but we share the same biology.'”

Randy laughed and admitted that he stole that phrase from a Sting song.

But make no mistake: Randy Kaplan cares deeply about who wins major elections, in the U.S. and around the world.

“The average person walking down the street, they’re worried if the Yankees won or the Mets won. They’re not worried about who the new French president’s going to be,” Randy says.

(Don’t worry. Before votes were even cast, Randy had collected baseballs signed by both Emmanuel Macron and runner-up Marine Le Pen.)

Randy says he spends 20 to 30 hours a week researching world leaders and prospective world leaders. That’s how he got signed baseballs from Barack Obama and Donald Trump, long before either had announced their candidacy for president. And he never goes anywhere without a bag filled with half-a-dozen baseballs and some pens. He says you never know who you’re going to run into.

“I sat next to Henry Kissinger on a plane one day by sheer chance, coming home on the shuttle 20 years ago,” Randy says. “My wife and I were having dinner one night. We ran into a couple of foreign leaders — the former president of Benin Mathieu Kerekou, who’s now deceased.”

OK, so it’s quite possible that I’ve sat in a restaurant with the former president of an African country I can’t even point out on a map. But Randy’s not like me. He’s researched all the world leaders. There’s no country too small or too far-flung.

But while Randy’s familiar with all the world’s leaders, all the world’s leaders aren’t familiar with America’s national pastime. So, when Randy handed Mathieu Kerekou a baseball…

“I had to point to it and show him what to do, where to sign it,” Randy says.

As news of Randy’s collection has spread, more and more people have been offering to help. He now has 350 baseballs signed by world leaders, plus about a thousand more signed by prospective future world leaders. He keeps them at a secured storage facility and only gets to see his collection when a museum puts it on display.

The Holy Grail

Despite all his successes, Randy was still waiting for his “holy grail” — a baseball signed by the pope.

And then one day, about two months ago…

“The mail comes. I didn’t even have to open it,” Randy says. “I knew the ball was signed. I had this unbelievable feeling inside. I opened it up. The ball is beautifully signed, ‘Francisco.’

“I am still bouncing off the walls and beaming about this one. To think that — here’s how I look at this. The pope held the baseball in his hand. He knows about my collection. He knows all the other people who’ve signed it. That’s very meaningful to me.”

It’s probably a stretch to suggest that the pope signed Randy’s baseball because he likes the idea of bringing the world together through baseballs signed by world leaders.

Then again, that seems like just the kind of message Pope Francis would support.

And besides, Randy Kaplan says, a baseball signed by the pope is one step closer to having them all.

“The pope, let’s face it, one of the toughest and most desirable signatures on the planet,” Randy says. “Right up there with the Chinese leader and Vladimir Putin, both of which I would love to have. If anybody’s listening and they have a relationship with either Vladimir Putin or the current Chinese leaders, please do get in touch with me.”

]]> https://thekaplancollection.com/nprs-only-a-game-radio-show-on-wbur-news-in-boston/feed/ 0 https://thekaplancollection.com/libn-play-ball-pope-francis-signs-baseball/ https://thekaplancollection.com/libn-play-ball-pope-francis-signs-baseball/#respond Thu, 18 May 2017 00:30:07 +0000 http://thekaplancollection.com/?p=758 Pope Francis has signed a baseball that has become one of the centerpieces of a collection of baseballs with the autographs of world leaders ranging from Nelson Mandela to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Randy Kaplan, a Long Islander whose collection of baseballs signed by some of the world’s best known leaders, set out to get the Pope to sign.

Kaplan said he pitched the idea to a cardinal who agreed to help – with team work winning out.

“I wrote to him and said, ‘Your eminence, would you be kind enough to help me try and procure the Pope’s signature?’” Kaplan said.

The collection already obtained some news coverage beyond U.S. borders. “The Associated Press did a story on it and it went all over the world,” Kaplan said.

The cardinal agreed to present the proposal to the Pope’s personal secretary. Then Kaplan waited to see whether he’d strike out or succeed.

The Pope signed the baseball, which Kaplan received along with printed cards with the Pope’s photo and signature and rosary beads.

“I’ve already had three auction houses call me and tell me they want to auction the ball off,” Kaplan said. “And I’ve told them it’s not for sale.”

This isn’t the first baseball Pope Francis has signed, bridging the gap between the sport and the more spiritual side of leadership.

Father Richard Kunst met with the Bishop of Rome who got the Pope to sign a baseball that he brought back to his church in Duluth, Minn.

And the Koeppel family of Palm Beach got the Pope to sign on a visit to the Vatican after William Koeppel tossed a ball to the pontiff from the crowd.

“He signed one for a gentleman standing outside one of his VIP location sermons at the Vatican about two and a half years ago,” Kaplan said. “He brought the ball and threw it to the Pope.”

The collection includes 350 baseballs signed by leaders including numerous American presidents, prime ministers, and other chiefs from nations all around the globe.

“All I can stay is I’m ecstatic,” Kaplan said. “It’s worth a fortune, but it’s not for sale.”

Next up at bat? He hopes to get pope emeritus Benedict XVI to sign a baseball, proving that something as simple as a sport, and one person’s passion, can bring people together.

Even more to the point, Kaplan’s commitment to growing his collection seems to be getting something done that, until now, probably would have seemed impossible.

Randy Kaplan has a collection of baseballs signed by 181 world leaders. It’s currently on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island. And every one of those baseballs has a story…

“Margaret Thatcher, of course the Iron Lady. Here’s another one that I treasure, too. Angela Merkel. I was very happy to get her. She’s a tough one,” Kaplan says.

Kaplan has always been a collector: baseball cards and comic books as a kid, movie and rock star autographs as a teen.

Kaplan, who is Government Affairs Director and Senior Lobbyist with the Long Island Board of Realtors, got the idea for his collection after a chance meeting with former President George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush at a ballgame, after which he had them sign a scorecard.

“Went back to my hotel room and I thought about this, and I said I just met someone who is going to go down in history. Not a rock star, not a sports star, not a movie star, but a real piece of history. So I kicked myself afterwards saying I should have gotten a ball signed. I’m at a baseball game, it would have made sense.”

A short time later, Kaplan was at the Baseball Hall of Fame and saw a collection of balls that presidents had thrown out as a first pitch.

“So at that point I put two and two together, and I said I would love to start a collection of signed baseballs from world leaders and presidents and have them on exhibit someday in a museum.”

That was in 1993. Bill Clinton was the first to autograph a ball in 1996.

“One of the ideas that I had with the original concept was to try and bring together the world to sign baseballs. What’s more American than a baseball? Then it dawned on me the same time as I was thinking up a way of documenting this, diplomacy through baseball.”

Since then Kaplan has gotten signatures from some of the most influential people in history, including figures like Nelson Mandela.

“It’s a beautiful signature, highly unique, as well as being one of the most desirable signatures in the world.”

Kaplan got a little help in getting Mandela’s signature from Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks, along with a warning from the great man: “I better not see this on eBay!”

Getting a signature requires planning, luck, and a little bit of chutzpah. For example, getting Gorbachev to sign, Kaplan went to a book signing with a baseball and a phrase in Russian he memorized phonetically.

“When it was my turn, I simultaneously started reciting the passage, and pulled the baseball out of my pocket. Well, security pushed me away and tried to grab the baseball.  Mr. Gorbachev stood up, pushed the security guard away, took the baseball in his hands, sat down, signed it, stood up, bowed, handed me the ball, and shook my hand.” “What was the phrase?” “The phrase was: It was a pleasure to meet you sir. Would you be kind enough to take a photograph and autograph this for my collection?”

Who’s currently on Kaplan’s most wanted list?

“The top two people right now for me would have to be Vladimir Putin, I’ve been trying to get him for a long, long time, and the former president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide. And if you’re listening, President Sarkozy, I’ve sent you numerous baseballs to France. Please, please sign one of the baseballs I’ve sent you and send it back to me.”

The Kaplan Collection has been displayed at the LBJ, Nixon, Ford and Clinton Presidential Libraries and the Herbert Hoover Museum.

Kaplan is not taking any chances: he has signed balls from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and their running mates.

“World Leaders on the Ball” is at the Cradle of Aviation Museum through November 8 – which is Election Day, appropriately enough.

In 1993, Kaplan had a night to himself during a business trip to Houston, so he bought a last-minute ticket to an Astros game. When he took his seat behind home plate, the woman to his right told him that former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush were home game regulars. Kaplan thought it unlikely they’d attend this game, however, as days earlier, there was a failed assassination attempt on the former president in Kuwait.

“Much to my astonishment, they both arrived right before the game began and sat just a few rows in front of me,” Kaplan says. “I immediately went into autograph mode and called out to the president to ask him to please sign my score card.”

Bush kindly obliged, Kaplan says, and left him starstruck.

“Up until then, I had never met anyone of his stature,” he says. Days later, however, Kaplan regretted not having Bush sign a baseball instead. The experience ignited the idea to collect signed baseballs from presidents and world leaders.

“My desire was to obtain the largest collection of signed baseballs from world leaders and have it exhibited in museums for the public to enjoy,” Kaplan says. “The concept is one I call ‘Diplomacy through baseball.’ ”

Kaplan has since amassed more than 180 signed baseballs from such leaders as President Barack Obama, the late South African President Nelson Mandela, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the late United Kingdom Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that are part of the exhibit “World Leaders on the Ball” at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, through Nov. 8. A baseball he got from Bush in 1997 also is in the exhibit.

GETTING AUTOGRAPHS

In one way or another, Kaplan has been a collector most of his life. Early on, his focus was on baseball cards, Topps Wacky Packages (peel-and-punch-out stickers), Aurora Monster kits and comic books. During his teen years, he would pursue celebrity photographs. Now, he’s a full-fledged political groupie.

“I decided that collecting the signatures of just world leaders was best because it required a certain skill set, strategic planning and unprecedented access in an age of higher security — especially later on, post 9/11,” says Kaplan, a Merrick resident.

Kaplan is particularly proud that none of the baseballs in his collection was purchased. Most of what he has amassed has been a result of his covering all the bases: researching the schedules of key political figures, networking and befriending prominent people in the world of politics, Kaplan says.

In 1996, during a business trip to Washington, D.C., and while working in government affairs, Kaplan attended a trade association meeting headlined by then-President Bill Clinton. Kaplan arrived a few hours early for the event and sat about 10 rows back from the stage. He brought an official Rawlings American League baseball and a marker.

As soon as the president ended his talk and stepped down from the stage, Kaplan positioned himself near the rope line with a short agenda: Handshake. Picture. Signed baseball. Kaplan surprised even himself as he scored all three.

COMMON DENOMINATOR

“I have some leaders sign a baseball who truly didn’t even know what a baseball was,” Kaplan, 50, says. “Many of the more remote African nation leaders expressed that, including the late Beninese President Mathieu Kérékou and current Nigerian President Mahamadou Issoufou.”

Kaplan managed to get Obama’s signature on Capitol Hill in May 2006 while in town for a meeting with Hillary Clinton, who was a senator at the time.

“While we were outside the building, Senator Clinton walked by, said hello and that she would see us in a few minutes,” Kaplan says. “Moments later, out comes the junior senator of Illinois, Barack Obama.”

Before Obama could say a word, Kaplan presented him with a baseball and a marker.

Kaplan says Russian President Vladimir Putin and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy are among the leaders whose signatures he is plotting to add to his collection — an assemblage with which he’ll never part.

“I know what this collection is worth to me,” he says. “I never plan on selling it. It brings me too much joy.”

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“World Leaders on the Ball”
WHEN | WHERE
9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday through Nov. 8 at Cradle of Aviation Museum, Garden City

INFO
516-572-4111, cradleofaviation.org

ADMISSION
$15 ($13 ages 2-12)