Baseball from 1919 WS found
 

Really cool. Thanks for sharing.

Chad

Incredible!

No ball cube? lol

To me, that ball is more historical and worth more than a mass produced ‘52 Topps Mantle - even the $12.6M finest know example one. Wonder what it would bring? Simply amazing.

Why is it in such terrible condition? What was the time capsule sitting in? 1919 is old but there are many contemporary game balls floating around out there. I have one from 1926. It still looks like a baseball.

If the ball was in an outside wall or cornerstone exposed to the sub freezing weather in Chicago, any moisture in the ball would freeze and split it apart over many winters.

True but why would you bury a time capsule without sealing it from the elements? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose? I wonder what state the other items were in.

Wow, simply amazing the air and interaction that ball had. By far one of the most significant artifacts of that era, if not all of baseball.

https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/octo...eds-in-game-5/

Struck out six batters with one ball?

Either there were no foul balls the entire time, or fans gave it back whenever there was.

It would have been extremely unusual for more than one ball to be involved. Balls were tracked like gold bars. Fans "failing to return" balls were prosecuted and players were fined/suspended if suspected of "losing" balls. I think they had just begun to phase out the spitball by 1919, but a well-doctored ball was still the pitcher's rightful property. The death of Chapman the following year would start the process of empowering umpires to retire balls due to blackness, soggy-ness, misshapenness, etc.

I hope time-capsule-technology has improved since then.

There is a thread on this on the memorabilia side.

I'm guessing some of you might not be familiar with the fact that balls from the 1919 World Series while not abundant are not Scarce-Scarce......."like one in a million! This is the only surviving example, WOW!" That's not the case.


Search auction history of Heritage and Goldin. They have sold at auction. I'd say they average around 10-15K.

Also, see posts on the memorabilia side, one collector on this board has 2 in his collection.

Extremely neat, but other things are much more scarce.

Regardless of the fact there are a million 1919 WS balls, still a cool article and find.

+1 Right on, sir!

Regardless, I think the letter and general provenance elevate this one to a very significant place within the hobby.

Letter is very cool indeed.

And it is a great find.

But there are a few other balls from the Series I'd take over that Sandlot looking one, like the one signed by all 4 umpires, and like the ones that have the game #, and or Stats etc on the ball itself.

This mangy one with the cool letter I'm saying 10K-20K in the current atmosphere.

1919
 

If any of the players struck out deliberately, and weren't trying their best, then I don't put any value on that record.

I have a game used baseball from the same game, signed by the umpires! This is a super cool find.

Just got around to reading this one. Very cool article and neat ball, Jay.
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