INSIDE THE WHITE LINES–The Chalkboard Autographs of Ray Jackson’s Restaurant

"'A lot of the guys would come into my bar, and after every game, just to talk and meet with the fans,' remembers Ray Jackson, owner of a tavern no more than a fungo from County Stadium called Ray Jackson's Place. It is still bustling 25 years later, and on a Friday afternoon, the feverish pre-game tones of a Green Bay Packers' exhibition game could be heard. But nobody is pretending it is 1957 again. 'The ballplayers were different then,' Ray Jackson says. 'In those days, they were more like us. They'd come in and want to talk baseball, or relive the game over and over and over. Crandall, Adcock, Logan Spahnnie, Schoendienst, Haney ... just about most of them. Nowadays, well, you don't get that. The guys are like movie stars or something nowadays; they zip off into their Rolls Royces after the game and never are seen.'"

"Milwaukee Went Crazy in 1957"
The Milwaukee Journal, August 22, 1982

Milwaukee knows beer—and baseball. Long before Milwaukeeans toasted their aptly named Brewers, the "Beer Capital of the World" was the home of the Brave. And when games let out at County Stadium in the 1950s, you could always count on ballplayers from both sides congregating at Ray Jackson's Place to mingle with fans and raise a glass of Pabst or Schlitz. It was a different, more innocent time in the history of sports bars, without wall-to-wall plasma screens or surround sound or fancy lighting or appletinis. There were metal stools, wood counters, a bowl of pretzels and beer. Period. And the players could drink anyone under the table.

Case in point: October 6, 1957. After an extra-inning loss in Game 4 of the World Series, Yankee idols Mantle, Berra and Stengel commiserated over a cold one at Jackson's Place. While there, they no doubt signed an autograph or two for fellow barflies, but they also granted the pub's traditional request of a chalk signature sample—which each man scrawled with the kind of exuberance and grandiosity not seen on your everyday medium like a ball or photo. And then what did these diamond heroes do the next day after whiling away their off-time at the local watering hole? They suited up for another World Series game, of course! Heck perhaps Spahnnie and company had intentionally lured all those Bronx Bombers to Jackson's Place because, sure enough, the Braves went ahead and claimed Game 5, too. A shutout, no less.

Here are 18 of those fabulous (and huge!) Golden Age chalk signatures acquired directly from Ray Jackson's Place by a Milwaukee card-store owner who then sold them to our consignor at a hobby show more than 25 years ago. Thus, they haven't seen the light of day ever since and are only now resurfacing for the first time. Each appears on a black piece of matteboard measuring 4-1/2" x 18" (about the size of a very large bumper sticker) and grading Near Mint. Visual contrast couldn't be any better due to the stark white-on-black nature of chalk script, resulting in overall "9-10" signature strength. Cheers!