Another truly amazing collection assembled over time and brought to you by American Treasures is this baseball fans tribute to the 1932 World Series – it all started with the acquisition of a sweet spot signed baseball included with a purchase of a nice batch of coins – you see the signature on the ball was none other than the Sultan of Swat himself Babe Ruth – The absolute holy grail of baseball treasures! Now this ball also has a note on the side that reads 1932 World Series – which started us looking into the importance of that particular series. Low and behold this series featured the New York Yankees versus the Chicago Cubs and would be Babe Ruth’s last appearance in a World Series – The World was fully entrenched in the Great Depression and in desperate need of any kind of uplifting event. Let’s walk you through the contents of this collection as we build up to #90 on Sports Illustrate d’s 100 Greatest Moments in Sports History – https://www.si.com/100-greatest/

Our quest for this collection was to immerse ourselves in the role of an avid fan, go back in time and see all four of these games, all the while, bringing back the proof that we were there, even arriving early and staying late to catch an autograph or two from our favorite players. Of course the two baseballs would be the highlight of any fans trip to a World Series game – and getting to meet Babe Ruth personally to have him sign the sweet spot ball here – (probably right from the field after winning the game) would set a person up as a highlight for the rest of their lives – (This why we think the fan was so adamant about marking the ball 1932 World Series and putting the name of who they were giving the ball too on the other side – might even explain why JSA fully authenticates Babes’ signature but calls out that it is enhanced – which we love – as it allows the signature to standout even far away from the box) – then to have to the clout to get the entire dugout to sign the other ball is crazy amazing – even having the Babe Ruth signature on the team signed ball being authenticated by JSA as a “Dugout Signature” (Meaning it was not signed by The Babe as he was not there when the ball was passed around – it was signed by either the manager, ball boy or other player as was customary at the time – one can only imagine Babe was out on the field signing balls for fans solo while his teammates were circulating this ball around – Happily this means that Lou Gehrig signed the sweet spot of this ball – highlighting the two biggest players of the series and perhaps all of Baseball still to this day….

The shadow box contains all four game ticket stubs, as the Yankees swept the Cubs winning 4 straight games – the first two games were in New York – as you see New York’s elegantly simple ticket designs on games 1 and 2, then the series shifts to Chicago where wonderful art-deco styling takes over for their ticket designs shown on stubs 3 and 4 – each ticket stub fairly difficult to acquire on its own, but to complete the set – amazing.

Along with the game used ticket stubs, we naturally had to pick up a program from each game, which you see along the bottom of the primary box – again highlighting the design styles of the two cities – this time New York out did Chicago (our opinion) with their contemporary classic cover featuring a Yankee sliding into home plate, while Chicago’s had more of a Deco Jazz Concert kind of a feel to it – probably keeping the theme from the ticket designs. Both programs have insert pictures of both teams’ along with full inning by inning scoring cards, advertisements and a wonderful picture of Wrigley field on the back of the Chicago program;

The programs are held in place using archival corners, so they can be easily removed and re-read over and over! Now the game 3 program is mounted open to the score card pages for a reason – and if you zoom in close the biggest Legendary event of Babe Ruth’s career is smack dab in the middle of the Yankee score card under the 5th inning – This is how we know that this is an actual program directly from game 3 as it is fully scored for both the Cubs and Yankees by a very diligent fan – one can only imagine this same fan was able to get both of the baseballs in this case signed as well – probably picked up the souvenir 18” mini bat to bring home to a young child as well – Take a look at the scorecard and see for yourself evidence of the magical event;

Now that you have seen the back to back Home runs from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig – the significance of this museum quality display is coming into clear focus – This collection is fully highlighting the famous “Called Shot” by The Great Bambino, The Colossus of Clout, The Sultan of Swat, The Big Bam, The Behemoth of Bust, Babe – and the list goes on – https://www.findnicknames.com/babe-ruth-nicknames/  – It also highlights the sheer joy of playing the game as shown in our primary focal point original photograph taken by “Wide World Photography” – a company owned by The New York Times – in what just may be the most famous photograph of the entire 1932 World Series game – an image you now see repeated, copied, reprinted, always on sale on E-bay, used in almost every documentary about this most famous homerun – it’s even the primary home page image used in the National Baseball Hall of Fame for The Called Shot – https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/baseball-history/called-shot – Just take a look at the smiles on both Babe and Lou Gehrig’s faces as George Herman Ruth crosses the plate after first calling out his shot and then smashing that whopping 440 yard home run off of Charlie Root;

Now 88 years later whether or not Ruth actually called the shot or not is still hotly debated, with several documentaries being produced along with full feature movies – Amazingly not one but two home films have been discovered from fans who brought movie cameras to Game 3 of this World series though the footage of The Called Shot is very grainy – here is a link to one of the original footage films https://www.thehighlanderonline.com/all-articles/89-features/458-the-called-shot we will put a dozen or so of the best links we could find on the web down at the bottom of this write up – We believe that the Babe actually did call his shot and my favorite proof is the Oct 1st quote from Lou Gehrig himself who was on deck watching the whole back and forth bantering between Ruth and the entire Cubs dugout  – who said this;

“What do you think of the nerve of that big monkey (Babe Ruth) calling his shot (in Game 3) and getting away with it?” – Lou Gehrig (October 1, 1932)

Interestingly it was not the New York Times that coined the event as “The Called Shot” as evidenced by their own editorial notes on the back of the actual photograph you see here in this display which we have removed and placed front and center as further proof that this may in fact be the original and only archival photo produced the same or next day after the game to be used in that day’s newspaper printing.  They highlighted the term “Homerun Twins” referring to Babe and Lou Gehrig’s back to back home runs;

Records show that Charlie Root the opposing pitcher at the time disputed the call – we know that at the start of game 4, when Ruth came up to bat for the first time – he was intentionally beaned as retaliation for disrespecting the Cubs in Game 3 – a practice that still exists in Baseball today.

Engraved plaques in the primary shadow box call out and highlight Babe Ruth – Lou Gehrig and the entire 1932 World Series – rounding out this amazing world class presentation box;