When Ralph Winnie wanted to get the signature of Walter Blair, the New York Highlanders' catcher, in the early 1900s, he found it on Blair's daughter's report card.

When he was 12, desperate for Lou Gehrig's and Babe Ruth's autographs, he snagged them at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City.

Income-tax returns, canceled checks, letters home from war, family Bibles, produced signatures for Mr. Winnie's collection.

Over his lifetime, Mr. Winnie collected more than 11,000 signatures from professional baseball players, one of the largest collections in the nation.

His love of baseball seemed entirely appropriate for a man born on the Fourth of July.

Mr. Winnie, 77, died Tuesday at his home in Shoreline. He had been ill with lung disease over the past several years.

"He loved the game of baseball," said his daughter, Jeanne McAree, of Shoreline. "His goal was to get every signature."

She said when her father was in the Navy during World War II, his fellow sailors would take bets on whether her dad could answer a baseball question, and he never missed.

According to McAree, her father said there were 15,000 major-league players from 1871 to 1998, and he collected more than 11,000 of their autographs.

He struggled to get the autograph of Dick Wantz, who pitched one game for the Los Angeles Angels in 1965 and died a few days later of a brain hemorrhage. He finally got that autograph at a collectors show.

Russ Dille, a local sports historian who knew Mr. Winnie well, said most of the signatures Mr. Winnie missed were those of ballplayers who played in the early 20th century. He also missed the signature of Eddie Gaedel, a midget who pinch-hit once for the St. Louis Browns in 1951 and never played another game.

And he didn't have Ichiro's. Mr. Winnie stopped collecting autographs in 1998 when his health began to fail.

He was a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), the National Baseball Hall of Fame Research Committee, the Pacific Northwest Baseball Hall of Fame Committee and a founding member of the Washington State Sports Collectors Association.

He wrote a book, "What If?," chronicling the lives of 100 major-league players who served in World War II, calculating what their statistics would have been had their careers not been interrupted by war.

It was while writing his book that Mr. Winnie met Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, of the Cleveland Indians, who spent four years in the Navy at the height of his career.

"He was a likeable guy and a great baseball fan," Feller said Thursday. "He was also very interested in what goes on in the world and was a great friend of mine."

Born in Norton Hill, N.Y., Mr. Winnie graduated from Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., with a degree in electrical engineering and went to work for Boeing, where he retired after 40 years.

Chuck Groggio, of Lake Forest Park, was one of his closest friends at Boeing and the two organized a Friday lunch group for retired Boeing workers as a way to stay in touch. Mr. Winnie went to his last lunch three weeks ago.

"I picked him up in his wheelchair and oxygen tank and off we went," Groggio said. "We're really going to miss Ralph."

McAree said her father began collecting autographs as a child and would send penny postcards to minor-league players in spring training, asking for their signatures. She said her father scoured sporting magazines for names and would write to retired players and begged family members for an autograph.

The families sent signatures from old income-tax returns, canceled checks and fishing licenses. Some were cut from the family Bible.

When Hall of Fame outfielder Hack Wilson died penniless, Mr. Winnie sent money to his family to help pay for the funeral and the family sent him an autograph of the baseball star.

Mr. Winnie tried 40 times to get the signature of all-star catcher Earl Battey, and he finally sent it after he retired. Sometimes, McAree said, her father would mail the players registered letters so they'd have to sign the envelopes.

Mr. Winnie also loved history, she said, and wrote a 300-page family history. His son, John Winnie, said the family was weaned on baseball, and sports was a huge part of the five Winnie children's lives.

"He was an engineer and his mind was always working," he said. "But he was more involved with raising his five children."

McAree, a former University of Washington volleyball player, said her father never missed one of his children's sporting events, going to work early so he didn't miss her volleyball game or her sister's track meet. "He would sit up in the stands and take our stats," she said.

Over the past few years, as his health was failing, Mr. Winnie started selling his collection. "He never did it for money," McAree said, "but for the fun and the love of the game."

In addition to daughter Jeanne McAree and John Winnie, Mr. Winnie is survived by his wife of 51 years, Margaret; daughters Yvonne Malland of Mukilteo and Suzanne Mitchell of Edmonds; son Douglas, of Bellingham, and 10 grandchildren.

Services are scheduled for 11 a.m. today at Holy Rosary Church in Edmonds, 630 7th Avenue N.

The family asks that donations be sent to the Holy Rosary Building Fund or Group Health Hospice, Group Health Community Foundation, 1730 Minor Ave., Suite 1500, Seattle, WA 98101.