Garth Brooks wasn’t quite good enough to play professional baseball, and now he claims to have retired from touring, so his autograph has become a little more scarce. But if you want to catch a glimpse of some signed Brooks memorabilia, many examples will be on display at the Smithsonian’s “Treasures of American History” exhibit, in Washington, DC, starting in January.
Country music fans were given a treat when Garth Brooks played an entire preseason game with the San Diego Padres several years ago. Autograph collectors were able to go up to the ballpark, near Phoenix, and get the country music star's signature. You were seeing signed baseballs and CDs flooding eBay during that time, and Autograph even received an In-Person Scoop involving Brooks asking someone if he could join him at his table in a restaurant.
Brooks wasn’t quite good enough to play professional baseball, and now he claims to have retired from touring (although he just played a few fundraising concerts in L.A. for the recent fire victims), so his autograph has become a little more scarce. If you want to catch a glimpse of some signed Brooks memorabilia, many examples will be on display at the Smithsonian’s “Treasures of American History” exhibit, in Washington, DC, starting in January. Included in the exhibition will be a guitar on which Brooks did his best Pete Townshend impression, taped for TV was from a 1991 concert in Dallas: He smashed the guitar, but it was later reassembled, and he autographed it, too.
Brooks also donated his black cowboy hat to the exhibition, in addition to a gold record, a stage outfit and hand-written lyrics to “The Beaches of Cheyenne.” In a press release, Brooks said, “I always thought that when this happened you’d feel like Elvis, and I don’t. It’s funny being the person that’s in here, because never, ever do you think you can measure up to the people who are already in here.”