America's popular pastime the love of baseball and like most sports baseball has generated a memorabilia business worth billions I think I consider myself a very knowledgeable about what a real one and in fake one is Mark mitch has been an autograph collector for 30 years and is very confident he can spot a fake but let's say his batting average took a hit recently a Steve Prefontaine Agra if you almost never see so he advertised for things that almost everyone would be interested in who collects what I collect the he markers referring to is Carl Meyer the way he fooled me is because of how he spoke he knew dealers he knew the business he knew basically everything that I knew about autographs and I've collected 30 years based on these conversations Mensch bought several items cards for Roberto Clemente Steve Prefontaine and Mel OTT when the autographs came I did recognize them as fake immediately and I tried to return them I attempted to contact him he actually threatened my life if I came near him and basically I was left holding the bag several Sports collectors filed mal fraud complaints with the Postal Inspection Service claiming that they purchased forged sports autographs Mitch was one of 56 victims who paid Meyer more than 74,000 dollars for items a lot of the victims submitted those autographs to professional sports authenticators who confirmed that they were in fact forgeries postal inspectors say when mensch filed a complaint they already had a file started on Carl Meyer everything was done by mail that was his undoing Meyer was prosecuted in federal court on mail fraud charges and is now serving a two-year prison sentence I'm glad that he paid a price because I'm sure he fooled many people besides me because I feel like I'm a person it would be hard to fool it's the first time in 30 years I think I've ever really been fooled