Babe Ruth & Honus Wagner Signed Ball, ca. 1933
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GUEST:
I was out in the mid-'90s visiting my grandmother, introduced me to her latest grandson. And she asked me if I still played baseball, and I said I did. She held her finger and she went into the back room. We heard some drawers opening and closing. She came back, she tossed me the ball. And I looked at it and I was, I, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I asked my mom, "Is this real?" And she said, "I've never seen it before." So, uh, my grandfather actually met these individuals, uh, in the mid-'30s, and it's been sitting in a drawer ever since.
APPRAISER:
So how did your grandfather meet them?
GUEST:
He worked for the cruise lines, the State of California, inspecting cruise ships. These guys were either coming back or going to Hawaii from the Port of Los Angeles.
APPRAISER:
Your grandmother put it in a letter for you.
GUEST:
She did, she wrote it down. She described the, uh, cruise lines and, uh, what he did.
APPRAISER:
When was, we were reading your letter before, we noticed it said the Lore Line. Well, Babe Ruth only took a couple of trips abroad. In 1933, he actually traveled to Hawaii for an exhibition game, and we believe that this ball was signed in 1933.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
By Babe Ruth.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And also by Hall of Famer Honus Wagner and Al Simmons. Honus Wagner, the great shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Al Simmons, great outfielder for the Athletics.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Interestingly enough, there's also a George Earnshaw signature on here. He was a great pitcher for the Athletics, as well, who later went on to the White Sox. We have a few mysteries about this baseball. We can fill in some blanks, and we're going to have to give some conjecture about this. In 1933, Ruth was winding down his career with the Yankees, and he had been bugging the Yankees for years to be a manager. I found a 1947 article that they quoted Ed Barrows, the general manager of the Yankees, saying, in October of 1933, Ruth approached him and said he had made a deal with the Detroit Tigers' owner, Frank Navin, to hire Ruth as the manager. He said, "You should take a train to Detroit right now and sign that contract." And Ruth said, "Hey, I'm go--, I'm doing a couple of exhibition games in Honolulu. When I come back, I'll sign the contract." Well, he went to Honolulu. When he came back, Frank Navin had already traded for Mickey Cochrane to be the next manager of the Detroit Tigers.
GUEST:
Oh, no.
APPRAISER:
And he said, declared, many times in his ca, after his career was over, it was the, his greatest disappointment in baseball.
GUEST:
Oh.
APPRAISER:
Because he was a coach, but he never became a manager.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
We're not sure if the other players went with him on the trip or not, because we can't find any proof. But I'm going to tell you about the second thing that makes this special, which means whether the players went with him or not doesn't matter.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
It looks like it was signed yesterday.
GUEST:
It does.
APPRAISER:
I've seen thousands of Babe Ruth baseballs, and this one, on a scale of one to ten, is a ten.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
The Honus Wagner. This is a ten. The ball is an eight. It's creamy, it's beautiful. It's red and green stitching, which they only used to 1934. You add this all together...
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
...and you put an insurance value on one of the most spectacularly signed baseballs we've seen by Ruth and Wagner, the first class of the Hall of Fame in 1936, I'd insure this for $30,000.
GUEST:
Wow, you're kidding. That is fantastic, thank you.
APPRAISER:
Are you surprised?
GUEST:
I am shocked, I am floored.
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