LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 May Sports Sig. Auction #707  / 

19373

1914 Frank "Home Run" Baker Home Run Baseball fr

Currency:USD Category:Sports - Cards & Fan Shop / Sports - Game Used Memorabilia Start Price:1,000.00 USD Estimated At:4,000.00 - 6,000.00 USD
1914 Frank Home Run Baker Home Run Baseball fr
<B>1914 Frank "Home Run" Baker Home Run Baseball from the Baker Family.</B></I> The scene was Philadelphia's Shibe Park, a warm summer's day in late June, just two days before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo would set Europe on a collision course with the first World War. The Senators were visiting the Philadelphia Athletics, and on the mound was Washington's number two ace Yancy Ayers, better known around the League as "Doc." As the greatest power slugger in the American League, a man who would top the home run chart for the fourth consecutive season in 1914, stepped to the plate, Ayers cradled this OAL (Johnson) ball in his right hand. Baker dug in, his mighty bat cocked above his left shoulder. In an instant, this ball and Baker's bat met in a tremendous collision, sending the former into the record books as one of a League-best nine homers that the Hall of Famer would hit this A.L. Championship season.<BR><BR> Somehow, the game's first great long ball slugger was able to retrieve this ball after his round trip of the bases, and he quickly scribbled the details of the event on the side panel for posterity. The quite light but legible script reads, "Home Run off Doc Ayres (sic), June 26th, 1914." This style of notation matches exactly the scant few other Baker home run baseballs to reach the market. The ball shows tremendous use from that day but still presents wonderfully over nine decades later as one of the earliest documented home run baseballs in the hobby. This fact, and the identity of the man that sent this ball on its wild ride, makes it a piece worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame, or of the finest game used memorabilia collections in the world. The ball is accompanied by a notarized letter of provenance from the family of Frank Baker. <I>LOA from Dave Bushing.</B></I><BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Balls, etc. (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
Sign In to Bookmark Lot