Sheryl Sharp pulled her hair back to show off her earrings after she collected an autograph from Seattle Mariners pitcher Ryan Rowland-Smith Tuesday at TOP Food & Drug in Kent.
The Renton woman’s two small earrings each bore a photo of Rowland-Smith’s face.
“Those are very cool,” Rowland-Smith said to Sharp.
Sharp took Rowland-Smith’s picture from a team poster to create the earrings. She also blew up a profile photo for the pitcher to sign from his Twitter page, where he is known as hyphen18. Rowland-Smith, the first player with a hyphenated last name ever to appear in a major league game, wears jersey No. 18.
“It’s such a great picture,” said Sharp, who owns season tickets for all of the weekend games. “And he is wearing a Doors T-shirt.”
More than 80 men, women and children showed up for the one-hour autograph session at a booth in front of Top Food & Drug. Rowland-Smith arrived about 20 minutes late, but stayed for a full hour as originally planned.
“It’s always good to answer questions and interact with people,” the left-handed pitcher said after signing baseballs, shirts, photos and baseball cards. “It’s always fun to have a little conversation at the table.”
The timing of the autograph session turned out well. On Sunday, the 26-year-old Australian picked up an 11-2 win over the Tampa Bay Rays at Safeco Field. He struck out six and allowed six hits in 6 2/3 innings.
“It makes it a lot easier when you pitch well,” the 6-foot-3 pitcher said about facing the public after a strong outing. “If I had not pitched well, it might not have been so good.”
Numerous fans at the signing told Rowland-Smith how much they enjoyed his pitching performance on Sunday.
“I’m a big fans of the Mariners and I listened to his game the other day when he did really good,” said Cole Trotignon, of Kent, who came to the session with his father to collect his first M’s autograph.
Other fans simply added to their collections with an autograph from the third-year Mariner.
Jane Henderson, of Puyallup, owns season tickets and has autographs of every M’s player on this year’s team. She already had Rowland-Smith’s autograph.
“He signs quite often,” Henderson said. “But I didn’t have one on a ball.”
Henderson plans to eventually turn over her collection to her great grandson.
Dean Anderson drove all the way from Port Orchard with his three young sons so they could get the autograph of Rowland-Smith. Jakob, 7, Garrett, 5, and even Zack, 3 months, received an autograph. Rowland-Smith signed the small M’s cap worn by Zack.
“They know about Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro,” Anderson said of his two older sons. “But I wanted them to know there are other players on the team, too.”
Sharon Hunt came up from Puyallup to get Rowland-Smith to sign a T-shirt from the Australian national team as well as photos she took of him with the Tacoma Rainiers, at spring training in Arizona and at Safeco Field.
“He’s one of my favorites,” said Hunt, whose autograph collection includes more than 300 baseballs as well as a dozen bats and even a home plate. “I have a huge collection. And I don’t sell them.”
Third baseman Chris Woodward was originally scheduled to appear at the store. Rowland-Smith replaced Woodward, who was designated for assignment Aug. 4 by the Mariners and claimed off waivers last Friday by the Boston Red Sox.
During the autograph session, store employees served free hot dogs and beverages with donations going to Susan B. Komen for the Cure to help fight breast cancer.
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