1929 Philadelphia Athletics Photo
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GUEST:
My grandfather grew up in Atlantic City, and… as a teenager, he used to go to Philadelphia and watch the Philadelphia Athletics games.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
Actually, the players were very accessible back then, and he had an opportunity to get with the… players and actually have them sign this team photo… personally.
APPRAISER:
Wow, so they signed this for him.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
And he kept it all these years.
GUEST:
Yes, he did.
APPRAISER:
And gave it to you.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
A lot of people consider the 1927-28 Yankees to be the greatest team ever in baseball, but there's just as strong a contingent of people that think that this team, the 1929 Athletics, is actually one of the greatest teams. The Athletics got started in 1901, and… Connie Mack was for 50 years their owner and manager. This is Connie Mack right here. He had a championship team back in 1914 and then broke it up. Uh… he put another team together after they languished in the cellar. In 1928, which is considered to be one of the Yankees' greatest years, the Athletics only finished two and a half games behind them.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
And then in 1929, they went 104 and 46 and they blew the Yankees away by 18 games, okay? They went into the World Series. They were up two to one on the Cubs, and in the fourth game they were down eight-nothing in the seventh inning; they came back and won ten to eight.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Next game, they won the world championship, and then the next year, they repeated, in 1930, beating the Cardinals four to two. So one of the greatest teams. Now, I'm going to tell you why, because some of their players were Hall of Famers. If we look at this photo-- and this is a panoramic photo of all the players with all their signatures-- the only one missing is Connie Mack. I don't know how your grandfather got the bat boy and he didn't get Connie Mack. You know, in the Yankees, you had Babe Ruth, you had Lou Gehrig, but here, you've got Mickey Cochrane. Mickey Cochrane hit .320 lifetime as a catcher. Today, it's still Major League highest batting average for a catcher. He won MVP in '28 and 1934. I mean, this was a pretty special guy-- so special that Mickey Mantle's father named him "Mickey" after Mickey Cochrane.
GUEST:
Oh, my! Wow.
APPRAISER:
Here, you've got Lefty Grove. Lefty Grove won 300 games. He led in strikeouts seven years, ERA in nine years.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
This guy was a super ballplayer. Perfect Hall of Famer. Then you go down the line, here's Al Simmons. Al Simmons, they didn't think in the '20s was even going to become a big leaguer, because he had this weird style, step-in-the-bucket type of hitting. This guy went on to hit .300 11 seasons in a row and knock in over a hundred runs. Then you go down the line, you get Jimmie Foxx here, who was also known as Double X, because it was F-o-x-x. Well, this was his first big year coming up with the Athletics, and totally, in his career, he knocked 534 home runs.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
But this is a big year for him: 33 home runs.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Connie Mack, who was the owner, got hit hard by the Depression and he started selling off his star players.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
So if they had stuck around for a few more years, they could have supplanted the Yankees at that time as being the greatest dynasty.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
But still, this is one of the Holy Grails in collecting for baseball for advanced collectors, because they appreciate how great these players were. Look at the condition of all the signatures. You rarely call things mint or near mint, but this has been rolled up for 70 years. If this were in so-so condition, it would be maybe $5,000, $6,000, or $7,000. This one, I'd put an auction estimate on of $15,000 to $20,000, and then I'd let the dice roll.
GUEST (laughing): Oh, my.
APPRAISER:
Because some guy's going to come in there, or two or three or four or five people, and say, "I have to have this because it is so special."
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