Peyton Manning Signs Autograph for Jamaal Charles, Poses for Photo With Dwayne Bowe

After the Denver Broncos defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 17-9 on Sunday, Jamaal Charles asked Peyton Manning for his autograph, and Dwayne Bowe requested a photo with the Denver superstar.  

While we don't often hear about exchanges such as these, they do happen on at least some occasions, and aren't limited to soccer players switching jerseys.  Here's a history of some recent trades between professional athletes:

January 15, 2012:

Ray Lewis and Arian Foster exchanged jerseys following Baltimore's 20-13 playoff win over Houston, as shown in the video on this site.  Each signed his jersey  just before the trade.  

August 2012, London Olympics:

From what I've read, swapping pins seems to be a usual practice at the Olympics, and it's one that women's tennis players Kim Clijsters and Francesca Shiavone engaged in this year, as shown on this NBC photoblog. Also, South African Oscar Pistorius and Grenadian Kirani James actually swapped racing bibs after running against each other, according to Joe Battaglia's article on nbcolympics.com.  

And from Timothy Burke on Deadspin.com: A Tunisian basketball player named Mohamed Hdidane got Kobe Bryant's signature after the United States-Tunisia game ... on one of the shoes Hdidane wore during the match-up.  

2012 NFL Regular Season:

If you thought Manning's gifts to the two players on the Chiefs were the only between-player exchanges that happened this year, you are certainly mistaken.  

Ray Rice has gotten jerseys from Jamaal Charles, Arian Foster, and Ricky Williams (though he got Williams' in the 2011 season).  He and rookie running back Trent Richardson of the Browns were supposedly going to trade with each other after the November 4 game between Cleveland and Baltimore.

Rice has also given his jersey to two other Ravens, Ray Lewis and Vonta Leach, and wore Lewis' jersey for at least one practice judging from Ryan Mink's article on the jersey-trading phenomenon.  

So trading among players isn't unique to the sport of soccer, and seems to be a least a little bit more common than one might think.  Rice was quoted in Mink's article as saying the following about trading jerseys: "It's huge.  People want them for memories.  Trust me, these won't go on eBay."  And ESPN blogger Bill Williamson wrote that lots of players request autographs from their rivals, also noting that, "Opposing players often trade jerseys, pose for photos, and sign footballs for each other.  I've seen that many times too."  

So this makes me feel a little bit disappointed in my own athletic career since I never once traded anything with an opposing player, despite having friends on some of the squads my college team played against.  

So since I have one very small souvenir in my room and plenty more still at home ... anyone have good sports memorabilia they don't want anymore?

**Note: All the information in the "2012 NFL Regular Season" heading came from Ryan Mink's The Caw: Jerseys Are NFL Currency, except for the sentence about the Trent Richardson-Ray Rice trade, which came from both Mink's article and the story Trent Richardson has mutual respect for Ray Rice by Jeff Schudel.