BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — A piece of sports history dating
back to the 1867 meeting that institutionalized racial segregation in
professional baseball is heading to the auction block.
Among the
items up for sale by Saco River Auction Co. is a ticket to the
Philadelphia baseball convention, which marked the drawing of a color
line that wasn’t eradicated for good until 80 years later by Jackie
Robinson.
During the convention, the National Association of
Base-Ball Players’ nominating committee responded to a black team’s
request for membership by banning teams with black players.
The
convention ticket, along with an 1870 Philadelphia Athletics season
ticket and a painting of Cy Young in a Boston uniform believed to date
to the early 1900s, will be sold Wednesday during an auction at Saco
River’s offices in Biddeford.
The convention ticket is the only one known to be in existence, said John Thorn, official historian for
Major League Baseball.
"For
me, the great collectibles are the implausible survivors. This
should’ve been thrown away. How it survived in someone’s scrapbook is
borderline miraculous," he said.
The Philadelphia Pythians were
coming off a successful season in 1867 when the black team petitioned to
join the National Association of Base-Ball Players, the first
organization governing American baseball, Thorn said.
During the
December convention, its nominating committee voted unanimously to bar
any club with "one or more colored persons," setting the stage for
racial segregation for years to come, he said.
A handful of black
players remained part of organized baseball clubs in the U.S. and Canada
until 1899, when Bill Galloway became the last for decades to come,
Thorn said. The color line remained in place until Robinson entered the
minor league in Montreal in 1946 and the major league with the Brooklyn
Dodgers a year later, Thorn said.
The convention ticket is so rare
no one knows what it’s worth. "Collectors may not be drawn to it, but
historians are drooling over it," Thorn said.
The convention
ticket and the 1870 Philadelphia Athletics season ticket were mislabeled
as railroad tickets when they were purchased for $60 as a boxed lot of
miscellaneous items in Massachusetts, said Troy Thibodeau, manager and
auctioneer at Saco River Auction.
The Cy Young painting, found
rolled up in an attic in Bangor, depicts the famous pitcher in a uniform
of the Boston Americans, predecessor of the Red Sox, and it’s believed
to date to the early 1900s, Thibodeau said. Both the Red Sox and the
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum have made inquiries about it,
he said.
Baseball collectors have shown they’re willing to pay for a piece of history.
Last
year, a collector from Newburyport, Mass., paid $92,000 at a Saco River
auction for an 1865 baseball card depicting the Brooklyn Atlantics
amateur baseball club. Saco River also sold a rare 1888 card of Hall of
Fame baseball player Michael "King" Kelly for $72,000 in 2012.
"If
you’re a baseball fan, this old stuff is the roots of the modern game
we see today. People just love it. They love history," Thibodeau said.
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Online:
http://www.sacoriverauction.com
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