Autograph of 19th Century Baseball Icon could fetch $100,000!!

Written by Steve Henson - Yahoo Sports

It was a grand occasion, the Boston Beaneaters' 1887 home opener and the first chance for fans to watch newly acquired star Mike "King" Kelly, whose batting and baserunning exploits were exceeded only by his élan.
He'd been purchased from the Chicago White Stockings for the unimaginable sum of $10,000 after leading the league with a .388 batting average and 155 runs. He'd invented the hook slide and the hit-and-run play, and stole as many as 84 bases in a season. He liked to address the crowd between pitches, banter with the umpire and bait the opposition, blurring the lines between baseball and performance art.
After the game, Kelly was off to the Boston Theatre, then to a banquet in his honor at the Elks Lodge. Mayor Hugh O'Brien presented him with a gold watch and chain. The 5½-by-9½ rigid card-stock program given to guests was festooned with red velvet ribbons. Its edges were gold leaf, its centerpiece a studio cabinet-style photograph of the striking, mustachioed Kelly.
He'd made fashionable the notion of signing an autograph when he rose to stardom with the Chicago White Stockings under legends Cap Anson and Albert Spalding. The post-Civil War era produced the first wave of American celebrities, from Mark Twain to Buffalo Bill, from John D. Rockefeller to John L. Sullivan.
Kelly was the first larger-than-life pro baseball player, and many of the Elks had him autograph their programs as the evening progressed, whiskey flowed and toasts became grandiose.
He dipped a black fountain pen into an inkwell, and signed, "Truly Yours, M.J. Kelly." One of the programs surfaced 124 years later, and it's in mint condition. Kelly's autograph is a rarity, and this one is perhaps the most valuable ever for a baseball player.
Many of the programs never even left the building that night. Thoroughly soused, Kelly was loaded into his carriage, normally horse-drawn. But on this night Elks and other admirers lifted the carriage and lugged it through the streets to his home.

It was a great night to be a Bostonian, a great night to be Irish, a great night to be King.
Within two years Kelly was the subject of America's first pop music hit, recorded on a wax cylinder and played on the phonograph Thomas Edison had invented in 1877. The song was titled, "Slide, Kelly, Slide," which is what fans in Chicago would chant when he flew around bases in his prime. It was sung on stage by dance hall star Miss Maggie Cline and covered by numerous artists as 78 rpm records proliferated in the early 20th century, well after Kelly's death.
Within four years he was moonlighting as a Vaudeville act, reciting "Casey at the Bat," often substituting Kelly for Casey. His pet monkey sat on his shoulder and a beer or shot of whiskey was invariably in his hand.
Within seven years he'd drank himself out of the major leagues and was a player/manager for an Allentown, Pa., farm team. After the 1894 season he contracted pneumonia during a boat trip from New York to Boston and died Nov. 8 at age 36, leaving a wife and small child. Legend has it he slipped off a stretcher at the hospital, looked up from the ground and said, "This is my last slide."
In 1945 Kelly was inducted in the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. By the second half of the 20th century, the player who'd been as beloved in his era as Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle were in theirs faded into obscurity.
All the while, one of the autographed programs from the Elks tribute dinner in 1887 was preserved in mint condition, buried in a trunk beneath newspapers, letters and some other Elks mementos in the attic of a wealthy family in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. When the matriarch died in 1985, the family had yard sale. The trunk of mostly junk sold for $25.
The man who bought it was a lifelong Elks member who enjoyed collecting pins and other relics from the club's early days. So he was thrilled to find the perfectly preserved program from the 1887 dinner. He had no idea who Mike Kelly was and didn't care. He just liked the way the program looked behind glass in his home office, and there it stayed for 25 years.
A couple years ago the man's 12-year-old nephew was hanging around his office, picking up and setting down Elks memorabilia. He saw the autograph and said, "That's King Kelly! He's in the Hall of Fame!"

Now the autographed photo and program are in an online sports memorabilia auction that will conclude Saturday. The consigner -- the Elks aficionado who bought the trunk at the yard sale and kept the program all these years -- asked not to be identified.
SCP Auctions estimates that fewer than 10 authentic Mike King Kelly autographs are known to exist, and most are on contracts or other documents. This is the only known Kelly autographed photograph.
Kevin Keating, perhaps the foremost sports autograph authenticator in the country, said the value should be substantially more than $100,000. And he said that no baseball autograph has ever sold for six figures on the inherent value of the signature.
"I can think of some Babe Ruth items that sold for more, but the signature was on a Babe Ruth home run ball, or a home run bat," he said. "What carries the value of the Kelly piece is the autograph itself. It's so aesthetically pleasing. If you could bring Kelly back to life to sign one thing, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything nicer for him to sign. It's breathtaking."
Kelly's voice is preserved in an autobiography he produced with a ghostwriter in 1888, the first ever by a baseball player. The home opener and Elks dinner of a year earlier were fresh in his mind.
"I shall never forget the opening game of the season in Boston," he wrote. "It was the most memorable night of my life."

Kelly became an active member of the Boston Elks chapter. Celebratory and charitable, blue-collar and benevolent, the Elks were a great fit for him. The Elks started in New York shortly after the Civil War, spinning off a group launched by vaudevillian Charles Vivian called the Jolly Cork Club so named because of a trick new members fell for every time.
Everyone would set a bottle cork on the bar. The new man was told that on a count of three the last man to grab his cork must buy a round of drinks. At three, everyone but the new man would remain still, so, of course, he had become the last to grab. Everybody had a good laugh and another drink.
The Jolly Cork members soon began raising money for local causes and eventually they voted on a new name. The Elks beat out the Buffaloes.
By 1887 in Boston, the Elks had become one of the few places where men of English and Irish descent mixed amiably. The Irish, long treated with disdain, gradually became accepted. Hugh O'Brien was the city's first Irish mayor. The purchase of Kelly by the Beaneaters was one more hugely symbolic gesture for the Irish.
Kelly became something of a labor pioneer when he and most other top players from the National League broke away from owners they believed were exploiting them and started the Player's League in 1890.
He refused to break ranks even when the powerful Spalding, owner of the Chicago White Stockings, privately offered him more than double his $4,000 salary to defect back to the NL (the American League didn't yet exist).
Kelly thought it over and, according to Spalding's memoirs, turned down the offer, saying, "I want the $10,000 bad enough, but I've thought the matter all over and I can't go back on the boys."

The Player's League fell apart after one season, however, and Kelly was never the same. Overweight and slovenly from years of boozing, he was released by Boston in 1891 and signed by an American Association team based in a suburb of Cincinnati that was known as Kelly's Killers.
He'd swim across the Ohio River after games, once nearly drowning after taking a few shots of whiskey, according to Marty Appel's biography, "Slide, Kelly, Slide." Kelly's career was coming to an end: He'd finish with a .308 average with 1,813 hits in 16 seasons, but having made an impact far beyond statistics.
Kelly went from being baseball's best player to barely hanging on.
Yet throughout his career he was an innovator and an entertainer, helping baseball become a favored spectator sport.
Saloons that long had a painting of Custer's Last Stand hanging on the wall behind the bar replaced it with one of Kelly sliding into home plate.
He was a hero in Chicago, revered in Boston and marveled at by the rest of the country at a time when exploits not eye-witnessed spread slowly through newspapers, magazines and word of mouth.
And thanks to at least two people clueless as to what they had acquired, one mint-condition autographed photograph of King Kelly has survived into the 21st century, and is about to become one of the most valued pieces of baseball memorabilia ever.

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Softball Keep Exploring Options For 2020 Olympics!

International softball leaders will continue to explore a possible joint bid with baseball to try and get both sports back into the Olympics in 2020.

Representatives from about 70 countries attended the International Softball Federation Congress in Oklahoma City this weekend and approved a resolution to move forward with talks with the International Baseball Federation.

“We’ve got a long ways to go yet,” ISF President Don E. Porter said Sunday. “I think it’s just right now it’s an expression of, ‘Yes, we want to explore the possibility to move ahead with it.’”

Porter said the group still doesn’t have clarity from the International Olympic Committee on the guidelines for submitting a combined bid between two similar sports that still have plenty of differences in their rules. He and ISF Secretary-General Low Beng Choo of Malaysia hope to meet with IOC officials in the next month or so to find out.

“It’s not a unanimous thing either way but we wanted to give everybody a chance to really air it out and see how people felt about it,” Porter said.

“Now, we’re going to push ahead and see if we think that’s going to work. The IOC’s still got to say you can do it or you can’t do it, or what you need to do.”

Porter has expressed concerns, shared by other softball leaders, that entering a bid as women’s baseball could jeopardize the sport’s identity.

In its last bid to get reinstated to the Olympics, softball focused its case on a lack of problems with steroids or doping, an ability to bring the sport’s top players from around the world and additional opportunities for women — all ways to distinguish itself from baseball.

Now, the two sports are considering working together because neither will be in the London Games next year or the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.

“We still need to have a lot of discussion and meeting because if you want to put up a proposal, you need to agree on certain things,” Low said.

It won’t be until 2013 — after the IOC decides whether to drop any sports that are contested in London — that softball and baseball make their case to get back in.

But the sports are already must consider what angles they’ll use to convince the IOC they are deserving of another chance.

The first step is hearing from softball federations around the world what tactic they believe is best.

“That was why it was important for us to give the members a chance to speak at the forum, so that at least we know and hear from them because every federation is different, every country is different, every level of development is different,” Low said.

The congress also awarded the 2014 women’s world championships to the Netherlands and the 2015 men’s world championships to Canada.

By Associated Press, Published: October 31, 2011

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Larry Doby - He Crossed The Colour Barrier - But He Was Second!

Larry Doby remembers clearly his first day in the major leagues, that day 50 years ago when he broke the color barrier in the American League. It was 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson had played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the National League. Doby remembers the excitement of that day when he became only the second black player in the major leagues -- he had hardly slept in four nights leading up to it -- and he remembers the dismay.

Saturday, July 5, 1947, a sunny morning in Chicago: Lou Boudreau, the manager of the Cleveland Indians, took the 22-year-old second baseman into the visiting team's locker room in Comiskey Park and introduced him to the players. Each of Doby's new teammates stood at his locker and looked over the young black man who had just been purchased by the Indians' owner, Bill Veeck, from the Newark Eagles of the Negro National League. Doby and the manager went from player to player.

"Some of the players shook my hand," Doby recalled recently, "but most of them didn't. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life."

When the 6-foot-1-inch, 185-pound newcomer, born in South Carolina but raised in Paterson, N.J., stepped onto the field before the game with the White Sox, he stood on the sideline in Cleveland uniform No. 14, glove in hand, for what he recalled as five or ten minutes. "No one offered to play catch," he said. Then he heard Joe "Flash" Gordon, the All-Star second baseman, call to him: " 'Hey, kid, let's go.' " And they warmed up.

Doby, a left-handed batter, was called in to pinch-hit in the seventh inning and after "hitting a scorching drive foul," he, according to a wire-service report, struck out.

But he was officially a big-leaguer, one who the following year would help the Indians win the pennant and the World Series. He became the first black player to hit a home run in a World Series, made six straight American League All-Star teams and, at one time or another over a 13-year big-league career, led the American League in homers, runs batted in, runs scored and slugging average, as well as strike outs. When he retired in 1959, he did so with a .283 career average and 253 home runs.

As major league baseball and the nation prepare for a season of homage to the breaking of the color barrier in the big leagues, virtually all of the attention is centered on Jackie Robinson, which is understandable, since he was the first. The Jackie Robinson commemorative coins, the Jackie Robinson commemorative video, the Jackie Robinson seminar.

"And that's the way it should be," said Doby. "But Jack and I had very similar experiences. And I wouldn't be human if I didn't want people to remember my participation."

Doby went through much the same kind of discrimination and abuse that Robinson suffered -- not being allowed to stay in the same hotels and eat in the same restaurants as the white players, hearing the racial insults of fans and opposing bench jockeys, experiencing the reprehension of some teammates. But while Doby will be honored at the All-Star Game -- which, coincidentally, will be played in Cleveland on July 8 -- he in some ways seems the forgotten man.

"Jackie Robinson of course deserves all the credit he gets," Boudreau said last week. "But I really don't think that Larry gets the credit he deserves for being the pioneer in the situation he was in."

About Robinson, Doby said: "I had the greatest respect for Jack. He was tough and smart and brave. I once told him, 'If not for you, then probably not for me.' "

Lou Brissie, who pitched for the Philadelphia A's beginning in 1947, recalled: "I was on the bench and heard some of my teammates shouting things at Larry, like, 'Porter, carry my bags,' or 'Shoe-shine boy, shine my shoes,' and, well, the N-word, too. It was terrible."

Brissie, who was from South Carolina, had been shot and left for dead in Italy during World War II. He pitched with a large steel brace on his left leg and instinctively felt an identity with the young black player. "He was a kind of underdog, like me," Brissie said.

Doby has not forgotten the abuse: the "N-word" being used every day, the calls of "coon" and "jigaboo," the times when he slid into second base and the opposing infielder spit in his face.

"I never sought sympathy or felt sorry for myself," Doby said. "And all that stuff just made me try harder, made me more aggressive. Sometimes I'd get too aggressive, and swing too hard, and miss the pitch."

But he cannot forget the sense of loneliness, particularly after games. "It's then you'd really like to be with your teammates, win or lose, and go over the game," he said. "But I'd go off to my hotel in the black part of town, and they'd go off to their hotel."

Doby is now 72, his hair sprinkled lightly with gray. He is huskier than in the old photos of him breaking in with the Indians. He works for Major League Baseball, handling the licensing of former players. Wearing a tie and suspenders and an easy smile and forthright manner, this father of five, grandfather of six and great-grandfather of three reflected on his years as a ballplayer as he sat recently in a sunny 29th-floor room at the Baseball Commissioner's office in Manhattan.

"When Mr. Veeck signed me," Doby said, "he sat me down and told me some of the do's and don'ts. He said, 'Lawrence' -- he's the only person who called me Lawrence -- 'you are going to be part of history.' Part of history? I had no notions about that. I just wanted to play baseball. I mean, I was young. I didn't quite realize then what all this meant. I saw it simply as an opportunity to get ahead.

"Mr. Veeck told me: 'No arguing with umpires, don't even turn around at a bad call at the plate, and no dissertations with opposing players, either of those might start a race riot; no associating with female Caucasians' -- not that I was going to. And he said remember to act in a way that you know people are watching you. And this was something that both Jack and I took seriously. We knew that if we didn't succeed, it might hinder opportunities for other Afro-Americans."


Doby had been leading the Negro National League in batting average, at .415, and home runs, with 14, when he was signed by the Indians. He began as a second baseman, but was switched to the outfield, where he would be assured of starting. But he was unaccustomed to playing there, and in an early game, in center field, and with the bases loaded, he misjudged a fly ball in the sun and the ball hit him on the head. It caused his team to lose.

After the game, Bill McKechnie, an Indian coach who had befriended Doby, said to him, "We'll find out what kind of ballplayer you are tomorrow." Doby recalled that McKechnie smiled. "It was a challenge and a kind of vote of confidence," Doby said. "The next day I hit a home run to win the game."

Doby appreciated Gordon and McKechnie and the catcher, Jim Hegan, in particular, who would seek to salve his disappointments and perhaps take a seat next to him after he had struck out or made an error. "They were tremendous," Doby said. "But there were others who don't remember, or don't want to remember, some of their actions. And sometimes I'd see them later and they'd say, 'Hey, Larry, let's go have a beer.' I thought, 'When I needed you, where were you?' I forgive, but I can't forget. I politely decline their invitations."

Doby spent his grammar-school years years in Camden, S.C. He recalls seeing the white people riding in fringed, horse-drawn buggies through the black neighborhood, and tossing dimes and nickels at the small black children. And then they would rub the children's heads for good luck. "My grandmother warned me never to pick up the money," Doby said. "She thought it was undignified.

"And then I always tried to act in a dignified manner. When I was in the major leagues, some people thought I was a loner. But, well, when Joe DiMaggio was off by himself, they said he just wanted his privacy. And midway through the 1948 season the Indians signed Satchel Paige, and they made him my roommate. Well, he was almost never in the room. I'm not sure where he went. But he was a character and he enjoyed being perceived that way. He'd come into the clubhouse and clown around, and did some Amos 'n' Andy stuff. I didn't think it was right -- at least, it wasn't right for me."

Eddie Robinson, the Indians' first baseman when Doby broke in, said by telephone from his home in Fort Worth, Texas: "I thought it took a lot of courage for Larry to go through what he did. He handled himself quite well."

But when Boudreau put Doby at first base to start the second half of a doubleheader on Doby's second day in the major leagues, Robinson wouldn't let him use his glove. "I didn't want anyone else playing my position -- and it had nothing to do with black or white," Robinson said. As Doby recalls, the Indians were able to borrow a first baseman's glove for him from the White Sox.

Doby had been the only black player on the East Side High School baseball, football and basketball teams in Paterson. He went briefly to Long Island University and Virginia Union before being drafted into the Navy. He first learned of Jackie Robinson's signing with the Dodgers' organization when he was on a Pacific Island in 1945. "I wondered if I might have a chance to play in the big leagues, too," Doby said. "Until then, I thought I would just go back to Paterson and become a high-school coach."

Robinson and Doby were followed into the big leagues in 1947 by three other blacks: Henry Thompson and Willard Brown, who joined the St. Louis Browns in late July, and Dan Bankhead, who came up to the Dodgers in August. Thompson and Brown lasted for only a few weeks (though Thompson returned in 1949 to play several years with the New York Giants), while Bankhead pitched the rest of the season for the Dodgers.

Roy Campanella joined the Dodgers in 1948 and Don Newcombe made it in 1949. But by 1950, only five major league teams had been integrated. By 1953 there were 20 blacks on 7 of the 16 teams. And it wasn't until 1959, when the Boston Red Sox played Pumpsie Green, that every major-league club had a black player.

Doby gives talks at schools, and discusses the changes in American life. "I know people are critical and say that not enough progress has been made in baseball, or sports in general, particularly in the coaching or administrative levels," he said. "And I believe there has not been enough progress made either. But when you look at other elements of American society, then sports stacks up pretty good. If Jack and I had a legacy, it is to show that teamwork -- the ability to associate and communicate -- makes all of us stronger."

In 1978, Doby was named manager of the White Sox, taking over for Bob Lemon midway through the year. He held the position for just 87 games, posting a record of 37-50.

"I was the second black manager in major league history," said Doby, "after Frank Robinson." Frank Robinson managed the Indians starting in 1975.

"Funny thing," Doby said, with a smile, "I followed another Robinson."