What do Oscar Robertson and Matt Groening have in common? Well, nothing really...but I'm combining stories about them for this blog.

I’m always fascinated when a Hall of Famer sells stuff from their legendary career. I understand when they die, and their family sells it. But, I recently heard about Oscar Robertson, one of my all-time favorite NBA players, selling a 1971 NBA Championship ring he got with the Milwaukee Bucks (that team had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar playing center). He got just over $91,000 for it. That makes you wonder...why he’d even sell it. That prompted me to Google, and it says his networth is $200,000, which blew me away. This is one of the best that ever played the game. He averaged triple-doubles. I mean, he could go do autograph shows and make $25,000 an appearance. I’m guessing the same for speeches.

This was all part of Lelands Invitational Auction, which also got $50,000 for a game worn jersey of Robertson’s. There was an autograph of his, on a lithograph with the 50 Greatest Players, that went for $46,000 (for that price, it better have been signed by a lot of the other players, too).

Robertson ended up also auctioning his Hall of Fame induction trophy, and a few other things.

Now, on to a happier autograph related story. On TMZ last night (that show is one of my guilty pleasures)...Simpson’s creator Matt Groening showed up at the airport. He told a group of autograph collectors/dealers, “I’m not going to sign autographs today. But I have these sketches I’ll give you.”

He then started handing out sketches he had previously drawn of various characters (not Simpson characters, but other people and creatures). It looks like he had about 25 of them, and his name was written on the bottom. The guy on TMZ that filmed it all, held up his picture. The rest of the people in the room gave him a hard time, asking him why he didn’t bring it in. One of them said, “You were afraid Harvey was going to take it from you.”

He smiled and said, “That was a concern.”

http://www.tmz.com/2018/08/18/matt-groening-signed-drawings-fans-el...