How I came to be the ‘greatest sign maker’

I originally wrote this story on my personal blog & in my professional portfolio blog. I’ve pieced most those two blog posts below & wrote a bit more to create a coherent story. It’s a long read, so if you want a TL;DR instead:

I won a Twitter contest to throw out the first pitch at an A’s game. To bribe my friends & family to come out to support me at a Tuesday night game, I promised them I would put them on TV by making funny signs & holding them up during the game. MLB.com shared my signs on their blog, calling me the greatest sign maker. My Google ranking skyrockets.

I love Twitter contests. Remember back when in order to participate in a contest, you had to write a postcard to a company, find a stamp, then mail it off? Today, all you have to do is hit up your computer or smartphone & send a simple tweet. Free & easy, my kind of contest.

In December of 2012, the Oakland Athletics held their 31 Gifts in 31 DaysTwitter contest, in which they tweeted a question (some softball questions along the lines of Who is your favorite A’s player? or Would you rather hit a home run or steal home?) at 11:00am every day, & a chosen Twitter responder would win the day’s prize. Prizes ranged from an autographed baseball, an autographed Moneyball book, to aRoss Dress for Less gift card.

I tweeted on days when I was around my computer/phone at contest time. I played on December 25th, but lost. In checking my Twitter feed, I find a Direct Message notification from @Athletics two days later, saying:

The A’s “31 Gifts” participant on 12/25 could not be accepted. You are the next applicable participant. Please email [the A’s]… w/your full name, age, and address to confirm the 12/25 A’s “31 Gifts in 31 Days” gift. Thanks.

Whoa…no way. How cool! I forgot what the contest winnings were for that day, so I check the website:

Jackpot! But could this be true? Still skeptical, I send the email to the A’s. On the same day, I get a response:

Hello Ian,

Thank you for your email.

The originally announced winner of the December 25 “31 Gifts in 31 Days” gift was unable to accept. Your tweet was the next eligible reply. If you would like to accept, you have won four Field Level tickets to an Oakland A’s game in 2012 and the opportunity to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

We will have to find a mutually agreeable game that works for both the promotional department and your schedule. Could you look at the 2012 A’s schedule and provide me five game dates that might work for you? I can then check with the promotions department if one may work.www.oaklandathletics.com/schedule

Congratulations and thank you for your continued support of the A’s.

Here’s the email from the A’s that confirms the date:

Hello Ian,

Thank you for your patience as we secured a first pitch date. Your first pitch game date is Monday, April 9. … [The A’s Special Events Coordinator] will be able to provide you additional information when and where to meet on April 9 for the first pitch. Your four Field Level tickets will be in Will Call under your name on April 9.

Thanks for following @Athletics on Twitter.

I had a mix of different emotions at this moment. Elated: I get to throw out the first pitch at a major league game! Nervous: I’m throwing a baseball on a professional baseball field in front of a group of strangers.

Naturally, I want everyone that I know — friends & family — to come out to support! At this point, I’m now on Facebook, calling & texting people to share the news & inviting them to come out & see me possibly bungle the pitch. Inviting everyone I knew was tricky because:

1. Most of my family doesn’t care about baseball.
2. Most of my friends that are fans of baseball are fans of the other Bay Area team (you know, the one with the halloween colors?).
3. It’s a Tuesday night, which required driving through rush hour to get to the Coliseum early.
4. It’s cold in April at night, especially that year.

Thankfully, I was able to rally a bunch of friends & family to come out despite all the hurdles. For those on the fence, I had to come up with a plan to entice them to come out for a good time…

I’ve been on the big screen at baseball games before, & even if you’re up for three seconds, it such a positive & fun experience. Perhaps there was something I can do to grab the attention of the camera operators at the Coliseum short of streaking on the field during play.

Prior to this season, I’ve made hand-made baseball signs. One of them actually got me on TV:

That was great, but my game plan was to create a bunch of these signs for volume. Remembering that it took waaaaaytoo long to create that hand-drawn sign & I can whip things up in Photoshop real quick, I thought it would be a better use of my time just to mock up some designs & find a way to print them at large sizes.

Learning from my unsuccessful home-made signs last year, I had to adjust to make my signs more TV-friendly. Trying to reference obscure meme references — even if they’re really funny — will not get much love on the big screen. In the end, I came up with five signs.

April 9th was awesome. I didn’t botch the first pitch. I threw it off the mound because I didn’t wanna scuff it up (regretted not doing it, & if the A’s are listening, can I have a do-over?). Ryan Cook caught it & autographed the ball:

Everyone who came out to support me had a blast. We actually got on DiamondVision a few times! In the middle of the game, a guy came by & asked if he could take some photos so he can put it in his blog. “Sure, why not? Photograph away!”

The next morning, I’m still glowing from the previous night’s events. Per habit every morning, I check MLB.com to read up on baseball news. To my surprise, this is what I see:

That guy with the blog? His name is Alex & he’s the social media representative for MLB.com at the Coliseum. One of his jobs is to catch any fun things to add to the newly-created MLB.com Cut4 blog. I run into Alex on occasion at ballgames, & I am still truly indebted to him for helping me start this new journey of sign making with an awesome name. Not only did he take the photos, he wrote the accompanying text in which he called me the greatest sign maker of the MLB.

I ran with the idea. Sign making was easy & after making the first five, I was easily convinced that I can create more as long as I have the ideas to make them. I’m going to ride the coattails of this MLB.com blog post & the Google juices it created. I embraced the name Greatest Sign Maker.

@greatestsignmaker was too long of a username to use on Twitter, so it’s now cleverly abbreviated to@gr8estsignmaker. My Instagram account came about a year later. The website greatestsignmaker.com came about two years after making my first few signs.

That, my friends, is how I came to be the Greatest Sign Maker. With the name, it helped me achieve a few awesome things:

1. Opened up a relationship with the A’s front office, in which they’ve commissioned me to create some signs that they still use today. In fact, it allowed me the opportunity to go on the field in the middle of an actual game!
2. Had one of my signs reproduced in bulk & wasdistributed as a stadium giveaway.
3. Be recognized as an ‘A’s personality’, in which I got tomeet Billy Beane!
4. I’ve been featured a few times on the MLB Cut4 blog, including a fun featurette that shows my sign-making process.
5. I’ve created pin button versions of my sign designs, so I get to see my work in random places in the Bay Area.
6. Met so many cool people at the Coliseum!

Now that you know the story, why not come & check out the rest of my work? I’m constantly adding new signs!