Exceptionally rare Spalding Official League baseball signed in fountain pen on the sweet spot and side panels by members of the cast and crew of the 1942 Lou Gehrig biopic The Pride of the Yankees, including Babe Ruth, Gary Cooper, Eleanor Gehrig (Lou’s widow), producer Sam Goldwyn, director Sam Wood, Walter Brennan, Bill Dickey, and Babe Herman; also later signed by Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews, Stan Musial, and Duke Snider. Mounted on a blotter with barely legible text reading, “Compliments of Christy Walsh, Pride of the Yankees,” evidently given as a gift by the pioneering sports agent whose clients included Ruth and Gehrig. In good to very good condition, with deep, heavy overall toning, areas of surface loss affecting some names (most noticeably Cooper’s), and several signatures quite light (most noticeably Mantle’s); Ruth’s signature rates a 7/10 in strength while the others average about 3/10 in strength. Accompanied by a full letter of authenticity from PSA/DNA.
This baseball belonged to Frank Maher, a member of the sound department that worked on The Pride of the Yankees. The film’s iconic line—‘Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth’—was voted 38th on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest movie quotes. Boasting the unusual combination of Ruth, Cooper, and others involved in making The Pride of the Yankees, this is a marvelous piece of American pop culture history.
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