Why do I autograph?

I was talking a bit last night during the Suns game vs the Hickory Crawdads and one of my friends offered an interesting question from his wife-Just why do we do this?
"This" basically means the autographing hobby and what we do for along with in this hobby.
In that vein,-this one is for you!

I started doing this because I didn't want a baseball season to end with my son.
I always would occasionally go to a Suns game to get a particular coach from my childhood to sign a card or two through the years,but it never was a passion.

I had coaching to get me through and through 10 years of various building programs,rivalries,friendships-the one thing that was left was the game.
After a great season in baseball,I didn't want it to end,so what Ryan and I did was start going to Suns games for the final two months of the season.
As we did this and began to get attached to the minors,we decided to do a Suns team set and I followed that up with the decision to do the Hickory Crawdads (then Pirates) and Lake County Captains (Indians,then in the league,now in the Midwest League).
It spun off from there.I still remember some of my rookie mistakes likes using silver sharpie way too much or matching sharpies color by the teams color!

I've made great friends in this hobby and I think that's often why I stay in it.
After all,what we do is basically ask young men to write their name on cardboard.
Essentially worthless cardboard,by the way-considering that the certification is only worth as much as the person that makes the claim,what the value is questionable at best and worthless at worst.
I spend more money than I know on cards to get signed and see nothing in return but binders upon binder,but I still love going out and being around the game.

It's the game after all that I love-not the graphing.
They play off each other.I wouldn't graph opera stars or legends of the stage,it's the game.
The young men that play this game at the level that I watch and graph never age.
There is always a new crop of players with the same look of hopefulness in their eyes-I don't think I'd enjoy the big leaguers as much with the business-like manner of the players,larger cities and more and nastier graphers.

Hope that's a brief answer to the question that was asked.
I may be off for a while.
My PC keeps telling me I have a hard disk problem.so there is no guarantee that I'll get a re-start.
Keep that in mind,if I am gone for a few days!!!