Karl Ehrhardt (November 26, 1924 – February 5, 2008) was one of the New York Mets' most visible fans and an icon at Shea Stadium from its opening in 1964 through 1981.
New York Mets[]
Known as the "Sign Man," Ehrhardt held up 20-by-26-inch black cardboard signs with sayings in big white (sometimes orange) upper-cased paper characters that reflected the Mets' performance on the field, and echoed the fans' sentiments off of it.
He usually brought a portfolio holding about sixty of his 1,200 signs to the stadium, each of them with color-coded file tabs for different situations. He was always positioned in the field-level box seats on the third base side, wearing a black derby with a royal-blue-and-orange band around the bottom of the crown and the primary Mets logo on the front.
Ehrhardt wasn't afraid to criticize the team's front office, once holding up a sign labelling Shea Stadium as "GRANT'S TOMB", referring to the team's miserable play and M. Donald Grant, the team's chairman of the board.
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