Signed baseball goes for record amount

[birdman42]

The article implies that there's another ball just like this one around somewhere. Or at least was.

"Greenberg brought two baseballs with him so he could get the signatures of the 11 living legends being honored that weekend. But in a biography of Owen written by his sister, Owen said that Greenberg was too nervous to ask any of them for their autographs. So Owen volunteered to do it, and Greenberg let him keep one of the balls as a thank you."

Bill

[insidethewrapper]

Exactly what I was thinking, where is the other ball ? In the Greenberg family ?

[Runscott]

Today's paper mentioned this ball, stating that the only missing member was Gehrig. Very ignorant comment given that Gehrig wasn't in the HOF when the induction ceremony took place. He was inducted later in the year after he was diagnosed and it became obvious he would never play again.

[Michael B]

Originally Posted by Runscott

Today's paper mentioned this ball, stating that the only missing member was Gehrig. Very ignorant comment given that Gehrig wasn't in the HOF when the induction ceremony took place. He was inducted later in the year after he was diagnosed and it became obvious he would never play again.

Scott, reread the article in the link. It does make reference to that fact. Perhaps the paper you read did some editing.

"Those 11 baseball figures were all elected throughout the first four years of the existence of the Hall of Fame (1936-1939), but as the only living members of the original 25 inductees (not including Lou Gehrig, who wasn’t inducted until December 1939), they were invited to an official induction ceremony to celebrate the opening of the physical Hall of Fame building. The signatures were all gathered during that first induction weekend."

[Hankphenom]

Anyone think the Taft baseball from the first presidential opener in 1910 might be in this league?

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by Michael B

Scott, reread the article in the link. It does make reference to that fact. Perhaps the paper you read did some editing.

"Those 11 baseball figures were all elected throughout the first four years of the existence of the Hall of Fame (1936-1939), but as the only living members of the original 25 inductees (not including Lou Gehrig, who wasn’t inducted until December 1939), they were invited to an official induction ceremony to celebrate the opening of the physical Hall of Fame building. The signatures were all gathered during that first induction weekend."

I should have mentioned that our local newspaper (Seattle) is frequently the only news source that screws up something that most everyone else gets correct. Our editing is horrible since the sports editor was promoted to chief editor of the entire paper. They even mentioned that Gehrig was about to be diagnosed with ALS, which meant he was not yet retired and no one knew that he had little time left, thus why would an active player be in the HOF at that time? Yet they insinuated that the ball was flawed because his autograph was missing.

A really fun editing gaff a couple of days ago regarding the playoffs - the headline of the article read something like: "Three teams fighting for four playoff spots". (the 'three' teams are Houston, NYY, Oakland and Seattle). Playoff spot 'four' is apparently one that will be created in the future.

But I'd rather have poorly-presented news than no news.