At a Barnes & Noble store in Manhattan in 1995, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev was holding a rare public book signing to promote his recently released memoirs.
For Randy Kaplan, this was a golden opportunity to have Gorbachev autograph a baseball for his growing collection.
But there was a problem. The signing had a strict rule: No memorabilia, only books. So Kaplan asked his then-landlord, a fluent Russian speaker, to teach him how to ask Gorbachev to sign the baseball in phonetic Russian. He arrived at 6 a.m., six hours prior to the signing’s scheduled start.
When Kaplan got to the front of the line, despite hearing the security guards stressing the “no memorabilia” rule, he took a chance.
Instead of presenting the former Soviet leader with his 769-page memoir to sign, Kaplan reached into his jacket pocket and revealed a clean, white baseball. As he begin to blurt out his newly learned Russian phrase, asking Gorbachev to sign the ball, security rushed to confiscate it from him.
But Gorbachev stood up, pushed his security away and took the baseball and signed it.
“Then he bowed to me,” Kaplan recalled.
The quest begins
Kaplan, a former lobbyist and avid political junkie, first had the idea to ask world leaders to sign baseballs after seeing first-pitch balls from various government leaders on display at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
Since then, he has had more than 450 world leaders sign balls for his collection over the past three decades.
The list of names ranges from the most high-profile — Pope Francis and Vladimir Putin —to the more obscure such as Festus Mogae, the former President of Botswana, who Kaplan tracked down after he found out he owned a chain of grocery stores.
When Kaplan began building the collection in the early 1990s, his goal was to see it displayed at museums across the country. A physical representation of “Diplomacy Through Baseball.” That dream has been largely achieved, having landed exhibits in multiple presidential institutions, including five presidential libraries and the Cradle of Aviation Museum.
Though that might have been the goal, it’s clear Kaplan has collected far more than baseballs during this gargantuan effort which he calls a second job. He’s collected some of the most remarkable stories one can imagine.
A prospect named Obama
Typically, autograph hunters seek to obtain signatures from leaders during the time in which they occupy their highest office. Within the hobby, one of the most famous examples of this is President William Henry Harrison, who lasted just 32 days in office before dying of pneumonia. Autographs signed by Harrison during his short stint in office are among the most valuable of any human who has ever lived.
While Kaplan says he would prefer to receive autographs from leaders while in-office, he knows that is sometimes impossible. As a precaution, he has often attempted to get ahead of things by catching a rising star.
His best prediction came in the early aughts when he came across the junior senator from Illinois on the steps of the U.S. Capitol building.
“I don't want to sound cocky, but when he came out, I knew he was going to be president one day just based on his ability to speak, his ability to bring people together,” Kaplan said.
“Would you please sign this baseball for me?” Kaplan asked then-Senator Barack Obama.
Obama obliged, then asked him if he was from Chicago. Kaplan replied he was from New York. Obama then lit up a cigarette.
“It dawned on me, he did not want his constituents to know that he was smoking,” Kaplan recalled.
As for Pope Francis, Kaplan tried in vein for years — going through ambassadors, the Holy See and more. Finally, it was after striking up a friendship with Cardinal Peter Turkson that Kaplan found success. Kaplan is now selling that ball at RR Auctions (he consigned it months prior to the Pope’s death).
One of the most controversial, as well as the most intriguing, balls in the collection is signed by Vladimir Putin.
“God, it took me about 15, 20 years to get Putin,” Kaplan said. “I went through everyone, from his ambassadors to the United States, to the United Nations.”
He learned Russian buzz words to help him get through various handlers, eventually reaching his chief of staff and even receiving a helping hand from former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
All of the most difficult names on his list have been achieved at this point.
“It has been 30-plus years of passion and very, very hard work,” Kaplan said. ”I’ve accomplished everything I've ever set out to do with this.”
Kaplan has been asked by so many people over the years to write a book. He says he will someday, perhaps with vignettes of the top 50 baseballs in his collection.
Kaplan never leaves home without a few baseballs, just in case. That has come in handy more often than one would think. He once sat next to Henry Kissinger on an airplane, ran into Jimmy Carter at the airport and has nailed down dozens of signers during UN week in New York at various trendy restaurants and hotels.
“I’ve met rock stars walking down the street ... anybody you can imagine,” Kaplan said. “You never know who you’re going to stumble upon.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.