March 30, 2023: Spring Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/30/2023
Here’s one for the ages: one of the most gorgeous vintage baseballs you’ll ever run across is suitably adorned with similarly majestic autographs from two of the most important figures in MLB history, Babe Ruth and Mel Ott. It’s an historic artifact so stunning and immaculate that it’s scary, thought to have been signed by the pair at the Polo Grounds between 1943-46, site of Ruth’s legendary efforts as a newly minted New York Yankee in 1920 and still the current workplace for Ott, approaching the finish of his own epic career in the rival National League. While the inclusion of the two Gotham giants (upper case for Ott) suggests a linkage to the 500 Home Run Club (just three members as World War II came to an end), it is also possible that the pair planted their autographs on the Ford Frick baseball as a means of commemorating their status as all-time home run leaders of their respective leagues. As noted above, the baseball bearing the imprimatur of the President of the National League is as spectacular as its adornments, certainly one of the nicest and cleanest prewar official balls we've ever handled. That lofty status is a worthy complement to the two signatures, Ruth’s elegant blue-ink autograph on the sweet spot and Ott’s on the panel above, with the former anointed a 7/10 by the Beckett autograph experts and the latter’s black ink earning a startling 9/10 nod from the same folks, with full LOAs from both BAS and JSA. Not much else to say about a possibly one-of-a-kind baseball that can legitimately be imagined residing in the same august Cooperstown, N.Y., tourist attraction as the two royals who signed it.
Stunning Babe Ruth & Mel Ott Dual-Signed ONL Baseball (JSA) (Ruth Graded BAS 7) (Ott Graded BAS 9)
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This lot has a Reserve Price that has not been met.