Jackie Robinson's contracts with Brooklyn Dodgers, Montreal Royals
 

Just saw this.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15...ued-36-million


While one of the great baseball artifacts I am not sure where they are coming up with the value on them.


Jackie Robinson's contracts with Brooklyn Dodgers, Montreal Royals set for display


An entrepreneur says he has unearthed the sports equivalent of the Emancipation Proclamation: one of the original contracts Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Mykalai Kontilai, who is using the discovery to launch his auction business Collectors Café, says he purchased the 1947 documents that broke Major League Baseball's color barrier for an undisclosed amount in 2013. Collectors Café plans to display the contract, as well as the original contract Robinson signed to join the Montreal Royals, a Dodgers' minor league affiliate in 1945, on Monday in New York City's Times Square.

"I want to say what an honor it is for Collectors Café to be affiliated with the great Jackie Robinson and to share these historical documents with the American people and bring all the recognition we can to the memory and work and mission of the great Jackie Robinson," Kontilai said in a telephone interview.

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier in 1947. The contract he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, which has been obtained by Collectors Café, "passed all the tests with flying colors" when viewed for authentication, expert John Reznikoff said. AP Photo/John Rooney
Collectors Café has agreed to donate 10 percent of the net sale proceeds from the auction to the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

Authenticated by prominent expert John Reznikoff and valued at $36 million for sale, the four-page Dodgers contract bears the names of Robinson, Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who engineered the historic desegregation of what was then America's most popular sport, and National League President Ford Frick. Robinson was paid $5,000 for the season.

Further supporting claims of the contracts' authenticity are letters of support from Robinson's 93-year-old widow, Rachel, and the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

According to Kontilai, the history of the documents that ultimately freed all black athletes from second-class citizenship in professional sports is as follows:

A Brooklyn historian acquired the Montreal Royals and Brooklyn Dodgers contracts, perhaps from Robinson himself, more than 50 years ago. When that historian died, his estate sold the contracts to a New York City collector of sports documents. The collector sold the contracts to Kontilai's company in 2013, shortly before his death. Kontilai said in the interview that neither of the previous owners wanted to be publicly identified and declined to share any information about them.

The authenticator, Reznikoff, has worked with Declaration of Independence printings and hundreds of documents signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. During the process, which took "a couple of hours," Reznikoff examined the paper and ink using several magnification procedures, including a video spectral comparator that can detect hidden alterations of a document, and compared the signatures with verified examples.

"It passed all the tests with flying colors, everything that I looked at," Reznikoff said this week. "There's a lot of components to a document. There's ink, paper, printing, and everything was consistent."

"I'm 110 percent sure" it's real, Reznikoff said.

The Brooklyn Dodgers document is dated April 11, 1947, and the Montreal Royals document is dated October 23, 1945, according to their $36 million valuation, which was prepared by Seth Kaller, who has handled eight Lincoln-signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, Benjamin Franklin's signed copy of the U.S. Constitution and many other documents.

"Their effect on American history, and even the world, transcends the bounds of sports," Kaller wrote in his appraisal. "Jackie Robinson's contracts are documents of freedom in the same vein as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Emancipation Proclamation."

Robinson integrated Major League Baseball on April 15, 1947, when he played first base against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Over the course of that season, Robinson batted .297, led the league in stolen bases with 29, had a .427 slugging percentage, scored 125 runs on 175 hits and won the inaugural Rookie of the Year award. His performance propelled the Dodgers to the World Series, though they lost to the Yankees in seven games.

The Los Angeles Dodgers were not available for comment.

Robinson's courage and achievement in the face of virulent and unrepressed racism by both players and fans, at a time when Jim Crow laws still deprived black citizens of basic human rights, marked an indelible turning point in black history. Television personality Larry King, who is a partner in Collectors Café, once interviewed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for what was then his radio show in Miami and described him as the "founder of the civil rights movement."

"I am not the founder of the civil rights movement," the freedom fighter replied, according to King. "The founder of the civil rights movement is Jackie Robinson."

Ryan Cortes contributed to this report.

I would think that 36 million is quite a generous estimate.

This is an original, but on par with significance, the last true 1776 printed copy of the Declaration of Independence did not break 2.5m in 1991. I would think 16 to 20 would be an amazing number.

This belongs in the Hall of Fame.

The article is a joke. It claims baseball WAS America's most popular sport. It's the NATIONAL PASTIME!!! Baseball has brought us through world wars and the great depression! Football is a fad. Done.

And getting back on topic, I agree, this belong in the HOF.

As mentioned before, the contracts should be in Cooperstown.

While I don't think that Football is a "fad", I do agree Baseball is a more pure and unmolested sport. Baseball really has not changed nearly as much as Football has in the past 20 years. It's also safe to say that 20 years from now Baseball will still be steadily doing its thing and Football could be something resembling two hand touch. There is a reason Baseball cards outsell every other type of cards in this hobby, rich heritage. I also think due to the health concerns that come with playing Football we will see more athletes come back to Baseball, just look at the pro Football players who are retiring early. The experience of going to a MLB game compared to an NFL game is night and day. I have been to several of both and I do NOT take my kids to NFL games. I do take them to MLB games. Back to the topic, no way that contract is worth $36 Mill. It is still a Baseball contract and I don't think it is as significant as documents that helped to establish our country. Baseball is great and Jackie was a pioneer but to compare it to something Lincoln did? I don't know about all that.

-James Steele

Nice analysis. I agree that 36m is way high for that contract, exponentially I would think.

Does it bother anyone that the owner won't identify the two previous people in the chain of custody?

Yep.

And, the "value for sale" number is made up to cause conversation.

Doug

Or that John Reznikoff, a listed shill bidder in Mastro, who also seems to have a very long history of being associated with authenticating documents which were not authentic, is the expert giving their opinion?