Babe Ruth Baseball Game

[aelefson]

Hi-
I recently acquired the two cardboard pieces scanned below assuming they were either reproductions, or modern fantasy pieces. Could anyone please confirm my assumption? In the off chance there was a Babe Ruth Baseball game could someone please provide any more details relating to it?
Thanks in advance,
Alan Elefson
aelefson@hotmail.com

[canjond]

The image in the first photo comes from his Exhibit card.

[base_ball]

You are correct in your fantasy/fake assumption. There are a few "Babe Ruth" baseball games, but none of them look like yours. The most common are a 1930s Milton Bradley game and a post-war action game by Toy Town. There's also the somewhat scarce Babe Ruth National game from the 1920s which has a quasi-religious tract on the game board. There a a few others, perhaps one of us gamers will post some pics here. Interestingly, the game you have (top pic) probably used a Parker Bros game called Double Board game as a template. The bottom pic looks nothing like any pre-war graphic I've ever seen.

[Butch7999]

Hi Alan, Joseph's off to a good start with his call. Both "games" are at best, shall we say, artistic pastiches, and at worst, outright fakes. They have a vague suggestion of authenticity because they're Frankensteins, if you will -- collages containing bits of actual games.

The first one, we've actually seen that before. Or maybe it's a second copy of it -- is the color in your photo of it a bit washed out? The one we saw was on a more brownish paper/cardboard stock, and had a pale green tint to the "grass" areas and a bit of pale blue highlighting on the Babe's uniform.

In any event, a seemingly well-meaning vendor had it up on eBay about five years ago. We informed him it was not an authentic game. After several cordial e-mails in both directions, he thanked us for the info, withdrew the piece from auction, and promised not to sell it as an authentic game. We haven't seen it again 'til now. Joseph is correct in recognizing the dice combinations at the lower corners as having been copied -- photocopied, in fact -- from Double Game Board or Game of Peg Baseball, both by Parker Brothers, although a further giveaway that this is a fake is that the results begin in the middle (3-6, 4-4, &c'), at lower left, and start (1-1, 1-2, &c') at lower right, instead of the other way 'round. Not to mention the most obvious error -- that a third of the 21 possible dice results are missing. The ballfield and bleacher images are also taken from the Parker games. The amateurish typography of the title banner is also too clumsy to have been turned out by a reputable publisher of boardgames from that era.

The second "game" uses much of the same imagery and typography as the first, and combines those, interestingly, with graphics (the numbered baseballs with the play results on little banners) on the only other fake game we've ever seen, not coincidentally titled "Babe Ruth Baseball" and again using the Parker graphics on the gameboard. The image of the Babe on your second game is also iconic and readily available for photocopying into a collage format.

It seems reasonable to conclude that all three are the product of the same hand. We think your assumption that they're modern-day fantasy pieces is spot on, and hopefully that means you didn't spend a lot on them. Our guess, and obviously it's only a guess, is that all three were created somewhat innocently, perhaps as a middle-school art project, for instance, and somehow escaped into the marketplace. The Parker games and the Babe images are all easily available, and too easily recognizable, for these to have been created with any realistic intent of fooling the handful of serious game collectors.

[aelefson]

Thanks guys! Butch, you are correct, I paid very little for them and in fact already got my money back from selling another item in the lot. I really appreciate everyone's information! I too wonder if this was a child's art roject or a deliberate attempt to defraud (obviously, not by the seller who sold them to me at that price!).
Alan

[Butch7999]

You're very welcome, Alan! In case you or anyone else on board is interested, the photo Chris W provided in the "September pick-ups" thread (post #8) shows one version of the Parker Brothers games from which the gameboard of the fake/fantasy pieces discussed above was copied...

[IronHorse2130]