Ongoing History Daily: Johnny Ramone, baseball fanatic

When he was still with us, Johnny Ramone was one of the biggest baseball nuts anywhere.

For years, he collected 8-by-10 glossy photos of major league players. When the band wasn’t touring or recording, Johnny would spend a great deal of time writing to baseball players asking for signed photos. Thousands of players wrote back.

At the time of his death in 2004, he had an incredible collection that even included major-leaguers who played just one game or even had just one at-bat.

Towards the end of his life, Johnny had somewhere around 5,000 8-by-10 glossies—which, as far as anyone could tell, was the largest such private collection in the world.

Speaking of collectibles, Friday’s post dabbled in the same sort of thing.