Rare Christy Mathewson photo in tomorrow’s Sports Auction: A portrait for the ages of a player for the ages

April 22, 2009
Posted by Noah

Let’s just say that modern day major league baseball could use a few more men like Christy Mathewson. Not even just baseball, really. The world in general could use a few. Make that a few million. Mathewson may have been the greatest pitcher of baseball’s dead ball era at the turn of the 20th century, and he was probably the most intelligent pitcher to ever pick up the hard ball. More than that, though, Matty was a tremendously upstanding man. He was honorable, polite and dignified no matter what the situation. His reputation was beyond impeccable and his moral authority unimpeachable. By any standard he was a gentlemen’s gentleman. I only wish I could have been around to shake his hand.

He died way too early, at the age of 45, from complications from inhaling chlorine gas in the trenches of Europe in World War One. It’s a shame MLB was denied at least a good 20 years of his further influence.

People universally venerated Mathewson. His dominance on the field, and his conduct off of it, made women all love him, men all want to be his friend and children absolutely worship him. One look at the amazing Mathewson portrait at auction in tomorrow’s Sports Collectibles auction captures the man perfectly. As the catalog says, it is easily the finest Mathewson portrait extant. It portrays the future inaugural class Hall of Famer standing on the mound, surveying the still infield against – as the catalog puts it – “the ghostly expanse of the empty grandstand.”

Both Mathewson’s stature as an athlete, and his measure as a man, are perfectly defined in this amazing photo. To boot, it’s got an un-personalized autograph, which is unheard of in the very small realm of existing Mathewson sigs. Simply put, this is an extraordinary thing.

It’s also another lot in this deep auction that works equally well as a piece of Americana, or even fine art photography. The composition is so clear, and the subject so expertly and artistically presented that I wouldn’t doubt it will draw some interest from outside the sports collectibles spectrum. Astute collectors of Mathewson memorabilia, however, are not likely to let this disappear into other hands. Between us chickens, I’d like to see this thing end up in Cooperstown. A lot of things are labeled as Cooperstown quality, but this thing really fits the bill. It’ll bring at least $20,000. As there’s never been a photo like this show up on the block, it’s hard to tell where the wheel will stop.

Mathewson was truly one of the greats, and he is missed even now, more than 60 years after his death. He was voted one of the 100 Greatest Athletes of All-Time by ESPN, had a career record of 373-188, an ERA of 2.13, struck out more than 2,500 batters and pitched an outstanding 79 shutouts. He was as handsome as he was humble, and no one ever wanted to get on his bad side. He would have been a great President had he chosen to go that way, or lived long enough to realize that he would have excelled at such a thing.

Here’s another look.

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Cross-category gem: A circa 1900 Unidentified Baseball Game Spinner in the April Sports Auction

April 7, 2009
Posted by Noah

This is one of those things that’s just plain cool that I like to dig through our catalogs for. It’s enigmatic, artistic, bespeaks an era unto itself and looks like it’d simply be a lot of fun to play with. It’s also in our April 23-34 Signature Sports Auction, which features a ton of great stuff. What this thing is, exactly, is hard to say. It’s obviously a baseball game of some kind from around 1900, and it’s obviously well made. It doubles as baseball memorabilia and American folk art alike, and I’d love to get my grubby little paws on it.

Jonathon Scheier, one of the sports consignment directors – and a writer I am trying to recruit to post occasionally to this blog - wrote the catalog description for it, which is quite good:

“Try as we might, we've been unable to solve the mystery of this beguiling game piece, a rather ingenious and fully-functional toy that simply oozes Dead Ball Era charm. A four and a half inch batter, complete with high-collared jersey and wide-handed grip, is spun into place against the resistance of a coiled spring. A push of a button releases the batter's powerful swing, and the bat smacks a small roulette wheel with a satisfying ‘ping,’ causing it to spin at a high rate of speed. An arrow points to one of a number of random scenarios when the wheel stops, signifying hits, outs, balls, strikes and home runs. It's definitely one of the most attractive and outright cool game pieces we've ever encountered for the sport of baseball, certain to pique the interest of many a collector with a concentration in the field...”

In the field, or out of it, I might add again, as this thing would fit as well in a hobby memorabilia shop as it would on the floor of a high-end Northeastern U.S. antiques show. I saw more than a few oddities like this little beauty on that circuit, and this thing has all the hallmarks of working beautifully across any number of categories.

It reminds me of the games my brother Cris and I would play as kids, drafting players from our baseball cards and rolling dice to signify hits and strikes and outs. We later switched to Mattel Intellivision Baseball, where we played the game as our respective teams and players and kept in-depth stats. I once had a team that, if I remember, had Gary Carter, Thurman Munson, Jim Sundberg, Buddy Bell and Catfish Hunter. On one magic, blisteringly hot 1979 afternoon – the baseball gods smiling on me – I managed to play a perfect (video) game against my brother with this team. It was a rare victory for me, let alone in such spectacular fashion. It led to my brother smashing his fist on the game console, ripping up his stat sheet and then punching me in the arm several times before sticking a finger in my face and telling me never EVER to talk about this again.

It was akin to having an opponent wreck the board in the middle of a game of chess because he had an obviously losing position. I never had that pleasure in my competitive chess playing days, but I know the pleasure from watching my brother freak that sun-bleached July day. We never played the game again, but I can still show you exactly where the three bruises from his knuckles appeared on my left arm.

Check out the spinner here. A real beauty in an auction full of amazing stuff.