Lost In The Weeds

Sports Extra 10.0

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When I was a kid, back in the 1950s and 60s, in the summertime, baseball was a way of life for me.

We played with the same baseball until one of three things happened — it got so wet and water logged it was like hitting a rock, or the stitches started letting loose and the cover was coming off so we couldn’t throw it with any accuracy, or we lost it in the tall weeds and couldn’t find it.

When I played high school baseball, the field’s home plate wasn’t far from a stream. Foul balls landed in there and the balls got really wet. The umpire would have throw that ball out. Our coach would dry it out and if he could, it would become a practice ball.

Sometimes we’d play a whole game with the same ball if it didn’t get wet or damaged. Most games were started with new baseballs and they were only replaced if they became wet or damaged. They soon changed from white to dirt brown. No big deal.

That’s why I am so amazed as I watch major league baseball and if a pitch touches the ground once, the ball is thrown out not to be used again. I was watching a college game on television recently and the umpires didn’t replace balls thrown in the dirt. It seemed unusual.

Up to 120 baseballs, 12 dozen, can be required for some major league games. Any ball that leaves the field of play, either a foul ball, an over-the-fence home run or an errant throw by a player, is replaced. Even if the fans throw a home run ball back onto the field, it must be replaced.

Pitchers or catchers can request a new baseball for any reason.

I don’t know when it was that umps started throwing out all balls that were pitched into the dirt or was fouled into the dirt. But sometimes when a pitcher is trying to lure the batter swing at a pitch in the dirt, or when the batter fouls off several pitches, it could take a dozen balls for just one batter.

Ironically, though, I have seen a ball grounded through the infield, overthrown at third base that was retrieved and thrown back to the pitcher who proceeded to pitch it when the next batter came to the plate.

According to littleballparks.com scuffed baseballs or dirty baseballs are an advantage for the pitcher in the major leagues. With many pitchers capable of throwing pitches at 90 miles per hour and even over 100 miles per hour, hitters have a difficult time seeing a ball that has just a small discolored spot. Dirt can change the trajectory of the ball. Scuffs can change the ball’s wind resistance.

Pitchers have been known to intentionally scuff a ball or add a foreign substance, sometimes spit, to make the ball react differently when pitched. Umpires now check pitchers’ hands and gloves between innings to make sure they aren’t hiding some grease or Vaseline.

I can’t remember buying very many baseballs as a kid, but we always seemed to have some around.

I write all of this to get me to this part of the story.

On July 11, 2006, I was in Pittsburgh for the MLB All Star Game. One of the other events attached to the game was a memorabilia auction.

The Hunt Auctioneers were selling all manner of interesting baseball artifacts.

I was able to score some really good seats for the game and my teen-age grandson came with me to enjoy the festivities. We went to the Civic Center to watch the auction. Before the sale started, we found ourselves in front of a display case that had a baseball that was the ball that was the first one to be hit over the fence in an All Star game.

The ball cleared the fence at Comisky Park in Chicago on July 6, 1933, during the very first all star game.

The ball was crushed by a player named Babe Ruth in the third inning.

There it was, right in that showcase, a ball that was hit by Babe Ruth and it was the first home run ball in a major league all star game.

Wow.

Here’s the rest of the story.

It was a hot day 92 years ago, when the first all star game was played at the Chicago White Sox home field. Thirty-six players were selected by fan ballots to play in the game. Twenty of those players on the field that day are now in the baseball Hall of Fame.

Earl Brown of Gary, Indiana, had bought two tickets to the game for 55 cents each,he took the girl who would eventually become his wife, Mae Swoverland, to the first All Star game. Their seats were in the outfield bleachers, just inside the right field foul pole.

The Babe, as everyone knows, is the most famous baseball player of all time. That day, at the first all star game, Ruth was 38 years old and his career was waning.

St. Louis Cardinal “Wild Bill” Hallahan was on the mound. He was called “Wild Bill” because of his lack of control at times. He served up a high fastball to Ruth who pulled it into the right field bleachers and right into the hands of Earl Brown.

Like everyone whose ever gone to a major league baseball game and claimed a home run baseball, Mr. Brown was proud of his accomplishment and probably spent the rest of the game admiring his prize, paying more attention to it than to Mae Swoverland.

Earl’s mind began wondering how he could get Babe Ruth to autograph the baseball. There was no chance of it that day, as there were 47,000 people there and getting to the Babe would be impossible.

He learned that Ruth would be back at Comisky Park in a couple of weeks to play the White Sox so he would come back and try to get the autograph. His plan was successful and the Babe signed the ball. Those eight cursive letters on that horsehide gave Earl his prized possession in life.

In 1933 there was no big money being paid for baseball memorabilia. To Earl it was conversation piece, a ball that Babe Ruth had hit for a home run.

Earl took the ball home and put in an old sock for protection and put it in a cedar chest for safe keeping.

Earl and Mae were married and soon they had a son, William, and from time to time as William grew up, Earl would get the ball out and show it to William and tell him the story of the all star game and how he had obtained the baseball.

When William got a little older Earl probably got the ball out and they tossed it around a little outdoors.

The ball was kept in a box or on a closet shelf and then William had a couple of sons, Chris and Dan, and they said they would get the ball out, take it outside and play with it from time to time.

For 73 years the ball was the prized possession of the Brown family. There was never any thought of selling it, even though sports memorabilia started drawing big money.

Earl passed away in 1965 and the baseball passed to William. In 2005, William’s wife, Virginia, was diagnosed with cancer and her health care bills were mounting when their son Chris suggested that it was time to sell the baseball. William was reluctant.

Chris told a Tribune Review writer he comforted his father saying, ‘’Dad… we’re getting rid of a ball in a closet. We weren’t getting rid of the memories.”

They consigned the ball to Hunt Auctioneers, one of the premier sports memorabilia auction companies.

And on another hot day in July, 73 years after that first all star game, the baseball that Babe Ruth hit for a home run at the first all star game was in a trophy case in the Civic Center in Pittsburgh awaiting its sale.

William Brown and his sons Chris and Dan were in the crowd when the ball came to the auction block.

The pre-sale estimate was it would bring $100,000.

The auctioneer asked for a 50-thousand dollar bid, and he got it.

Then 75-thousand, and 100-thousand.

William Brown just looked down at the program he was holding as the bidding went on up.

The noise in the room fell silent as only the numbers called by the auctioneer rang against the walls. The bidding progressed in $50-thousand dollar increments. It passed $500,000, $600,000.

The auctioneer paused, then the crash of his gavel broke the calm.

“Sold, seven hundred thousand dollars!”

Tears were streaming down William Brown’s face.

Chris Brown had been right. The ball would provide for his father and mother for the rest of their lives.

One of the Brown boys told a reporter that they certainly didn’t realize what they had when they were tossing that ball around as kids.If a scuff had marred Ruth’s Signature, the ball’s value would have plummeted.

If my dad had a ball like that, I’m sure I would have lost it in the weeds, like most the baseballs I had as a child.

Thanks for reading. Your comments would make this post even more interesting.

Or you could buy me a cup of coffee here. A steaming cup of would help speed up the wait for the regular MLB season to get started.