John Ball
© Thomas Wilson Shawcross 8 February 2005
I am the proud owner of what I call the “John Ball.” Lately, I have been wondering how much this one-of-a-kind Major League baseball would fetch on the open market. Let us consider the following comps:
1. The Bartman Ball. On October 14, 2003, Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman interfered with a foul pop-up in Game 6 of the NLCS between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins. Subsequently, Harry Caray's Restaurant paid $113,824 for the right to explode the infamous "Bartman Ball."
2. The McGuire Ball. Comic-book publisher Todd McFarlane paid $3.005 million for the baseball that was the receiving end of Mark McGuire’s 70th home run of the 1998 season.
3. The Final Out Ball. The baseball that was the final out in the 2004 World Series win by the Boston Red Sox is currently the subject of an ownership dispute. The Bosox back-up first baseman, Doug Mientkiewicz , caught the ball and kept it. The team wants it back, but the player views it as his kid’s college fund. How much will someone pay for it?
Price is, of course, affected by rarity, and as I mentioned, the John Ball is one-of-a-kind. Of the millions of Major League baseballs that have been stitched in the past one-hundred-fifty years or so, this is THE ONLY one that has been fouled-off to me. That should be worth something.
Also, I have heard it said that the value of an object is affected by the regard in which it has been held. While looking at simple hand-made chairs at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, I learned that those babies fetch up to ten grand apiece, mainly because their makers believed truly that an angel might someday descend from Heaven and sit on one of them. Well, it was nearly a religious experience when I got the John Ball, so that should count for something too.
A story. Every “priceless” object, be it Hope Diamond, Faberge egg, or Declaration of Independence, needs a good story behind it. Well, John Ball has a story, and I will let the reader judge how worthy it may be.
The story begins at Sportsman’s Park on an overcast day in June, 1960. Well, ok, the name of Sportsman’s Park had been changed to Busch Stadium in 1953, but I had not yet adjusted to this, and so I still called it Sportsman’s Park. My brother Jim Shawcross and my friend Dennis Haley and I (his name had been changed to Dennis Pezzani, but I had not adjusted to this yet either) had gone to Sportsman’s Park to watch our beloved St. Louis Cardinals play the Pittsburgh Pirates.
In the fourth inning, I decided I needed a hot dog. No in-stand vendors were in the vicinity, so I walked behind the stands, to the concession booth located in the interior of the park, behind the home plate section.
Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, MO (1902-1966)
I purchased one red hot (a ball park frank) and slathered the bun with yellow mustard. Then I re-entered the stands and started walking back to my seat. As I emerged into the stands, I was behind the screen that protected the people sitting directly behind home plate, but I could see that the batter was the St. Louis Cardinal third baseman, Ken Boyer.
Ken Boyer
The pitcher was former-Cardinal Vinegar Bend Mizell, who had recently been traded to the Pirates for second baseman Julian Javier. I figured it was probably the first time Ken had ever faced the pitching of his ex-teammate, a 6’ 3” 203 lb. starter who had control problems.
Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell
I watched as Ken Boyer fouled off the next pitch. It zinged into the stands, just wide of the screen behind home plate. Too far from me, as usual.
I had been to so many Cardinal games, sometimes optimistically bringing my glove so that I could snag a few fouls, but none had ever come close enough so that I had a reasonable chance. Now, here it was happening again. I was used to it.
But wait! The ball avoided eagerly outstretched hands, smacked into a railing and took a pool-cushion angle bounce toward me!
The section of the stadium I was in was full of crazy angles. Home plate was the epicenter of a collision between the tectonic plates of right field and left field, where straight lines suddenly realized that a curve was needed, and angles piled up upon angles in this train-wreck crazy quilt section of the park.
Ha Ha! So much the better for me. The ball bounced across the walkway toward me. My eyes must have bulged in astonishment. I took a step toward it, but I was too late, it had crossed the walkway and dropped behind some empty seats to my left. Suddenly, to my horror, I could see that I had competition for this ball. A kid my size emerged out of nowhere and started crawling on his hands and knees through the railings and under the seats, homing in on the ball! Amazingly, I can still “see” this kid in my memory. He was wearing a gray car coat and matching cap (note to self: whatever happened to car coats?).
But, hey! That is MY ball, bucko! He wasn’t going to get it without a fight. I could see that he had a head start on me, with his crawling-on-all-fours approach. Ok, he had ground superiority, so I would launch an air strike. Without a second thought, I took a couple of running steps and then dove head-first into the air, flying over the railings, the wood and metal seats, the concrete flooring, and the kid in the car coat.
I came down on top of some empty seats. My feet were in the air, but my left arm was outstretched toward the ground and my prize! The ball was just about to roll down another step! If it did, I would probably lose it to my evil rival, who seemed to be gaining on me. With a final desperate lunge, my hand closed on the ball just as it was poised to fall down the next step. That moment is frozen in time for me now. I can look at the mental picture of it whenever I like. I HAD THE BALL.
What I didn’t have was any semblance of balance. I was almost literally standing on one arm, with my legs draped across the chair backs behind me. I struggled to my feet. For a split-second, I worried that some of the men in the stands might try to wrest the ball from me. I scanned the crowd, looking for threats. Instead, I got applause. People were applauding me! I suppose car-coat wasn’t, but I never looked back at him.
I am fairly certain that my feet never touched the ground as I skipped back to my seat where, as casually as I could, I extended my left arm to Jim and Dennis and said, “Look what I got.”
As my now bug-eyed companions salivated over my trophy, I settled back in my seat and raised my nearly forgotten right hand, which all this time had been patiently holding my hot dog. I took a deep satisfying chomp of mustard and bun, but no hot dog. In the excitement, I had increased my grip, and the hot dog had squirted out somewhere under the empty seats behind home plate.
I didn’t care. I had my ball. The first of who knew how many more to come? (Feb 2005 update: none, so far). I didn’t see Dennis the rest of the game. He went into the upper right field stands, in hopes that a batter would foul one up there, and he could get a ball too. There weren’t many fans up there, so his logic seemed sound, but no balls went into the upper right field deck that afternoon.
In fact, the game did not last much longer. The overcast skies turned darker, and it began to rain. As we waited to see if the game would resume (it didn’t), Jim, Dennis, and I went over toward the Cardinal dugout to see if any players would autograph my ball. I was hoping for my hero, Stan “The Man” Musial, but I would take anyone, Kenny Boyer, Ernie Broglio, Wally Moon, whomever.
I couldn’t see into the dugout, so I called out, asking if anyone was there. A wiry little man, who appeared old enough to be Methuselah’s grandfather, stepped out. He was wearing a Cardinal uniform, but surely he couldn’t be a player! He looked antediluvian.
Johnny Keane
Recovering from my shock at seeing him, I asked if there were any players in the dugout who could autograph my baseball.
“No, they’ve all gone inside to the locker room. But I’ll sign it for you.”
Well, I had said that I would take anyone’s signature . . . and he was wearing a Cardinal uniform, so OK! I handed him the ball.
“You got a pen?”
No. I didn’t! Was I supposed to have provided a pen? I never carried a pen on me and had never thought to bring one. Suddenly, an unknown man nearby handed me his ballpoint pen. I couldn’t believe my good luck.
Methuselah’s grandfather took the pen and started writing. He was having trouble writing (probably too old to write; I hoped he would live long enough to complete his signature).
“This pen is out of ink.” He handed the pen and the ball back to me. The ball now had “John” written upon it. No surname. I thanked him, and went back into the stadium (it was starting to rain harder). Jim, Dennis and I looked for his uniform number on a scorecard.
“John Keane. Third base coach.” Oh. Never heard of him! Johnny Keane would go on next year to replace Solly Hemus as manager of the Cardinals, and in 1964 would lead the Red Birds to a World Series victory over the Yankees, only to die 7 Jan 1967 of a heart attack at age 55. Yes, that incredibly ancient looking man (ancient to thirteen year old me) was 49.
All right, so the autograph “John” might not be what I was hoping for, but obviously this was my lucky day, so I decided to see if I could get into the locker room. This was pre-911, and security wasn’t as tight then as it is now.
The door to the locker room was slightly ajar. Suddenly, Ernie Broglio, today’s Cardinal pitcher, walked by!
“Mr. Broglio! Could you sign my ball?”
“Sure, kid! Got a pen?”
Rats! When would I learn? I still didn’t have a pen. Then a fascist security guard chased me away. Oh, but life was still sweet, I had my “John Ball.”
That is the story. So, how much would you pay for the John Ball now? But wait! There’s more . . .
I went home from the game that day, and suddenly it was 1997 and I was old as Johnny Keane and had a son of my own (and a lovely daughter, who has passing little interest in baseball). I received a letter from my alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis, advising that WU had a special event planned in my part of Florida. The St. Louis Cardinals would be playing a Spring Training game against the New York Mets in Jupiter, Florida, and a special section would be set aside for WU alumni. I decided to take my son to the game (Lauren wasn’t interested in going).
“Let’s bring the John Ball,” I said to Michael, “maybe we can get some more autographs on it.” Secretly, I was hoping for some surnames this time!
We arrived at the ballpark, and sure enough, some of the younger players were giving autographs. I hadn’t kept up with the Cardinals, and I didn’t know whom any of the young players were. Two of the players signed the John Ball for us. I smiled with satisfaction as I noted they included surnames on the ball.
So! Who did we have? History repeating itself, I reached for a scorecard and looked for them. Ah ha! We had two young pitchers – John Frascatore (No. 50) and Curtis King. Hopefully, they would go on to become Hall of Famers (Feb 2005 update: John played seven seasons, for three teams, amassing a career record of twenty wins and seventeen losses. Curtis played two seasons for the Cardinals and had a cup of coffee with them (two games) in a third season, compiling a lifetime 6-2 record.)
Just then, I heard something behind us, and as I turned, I was amazed to see my idol, Stan “The Man” Musial, on the platform behind us. As it turned out, I was seeing what I wanted to see. What I was seeing was the owner of the Cardinals baseball team (who bears a striking resemblance to Stan Musial, I must say). His name was Bill DeWitt.
The person who introduced Bill as a speaker mentioned that Bill’s uniform was in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY. Bill explained that his dad had given him a uniform when his dad was part owner of the St. Louis Browns baseball team (now known as the Baltimore Orioles).
On August 19, 1951 at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, the majority owner of the Browns, Bill Veeck, sent to the plate a 37” midget named Eddie Gaedel. Eddie was instructed to crouch low and not swing his bat. With his one and one-half inch strike zone, Eddie was walked on four pitches. He received a standing ovation as he was replaced immediately by a pinch runner.
The uniform that Eddie wore that day was the one that belonged to young Bill DeWitt. It had been modified to include the number 1/8 on the back. The uniform is now enshrined at Cooperstown.
The above photo, taken in Boca Raton, FL on 9 February 2005,
shows a reunion of the left hand of Tom Shawcross and the John Ball.
Photo credit: The right hand of TWS
I suppose Ernie Broglio is still rummaging around in the St. Louis Cardinal locker room, looking for a pen. When I told him I didn’t have a pen, he said he would go get one and would be right back. We waited. As Jim recalls it, we waited until the stadium was nearly deserted, and we missed our ride home on the Red Bird Express. He says we had to call for a ride home.
That sounds about right. Jim may remember this better than I do. As Jim recalls it, we tried first to get Ernie Broglio’s signature, and while he was looking for a pen, we snuck past “No Admittance” signs into the Cardinal dugout and found Johnny Keane. In Jim’s memory of this day, Johnny tried to sign the ball, but his pen ran out of ink. I went into the stands to borrow a pen, but by the time I got back, Johnny Keane was gone. So, now you have three stories about the John Ball! Now, how much would you pay?
I am the proud owner of what I call the “John Ball.” Lately, I have been wondering how much this one-of-a-kind Major League baseball would fetch on the open market. Let us consider the following comps:
1. The Bartman Ball. On October 14, 2003, Chicago Cubs fan Steve Bartman interfered with a foul pop-up in Game 6 of the NLCS between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins. Subsequently, Harry Caray's Restaurant paid $113,824 for the right to explode the infamous "Bartman Ball."
2. The McGuire Ball. Comic-book publisher Todd McFarlane paid $3.005 million for the baseball that was the receiving end of Mark McGuire’s 70th home run of the 1998 season.
3. The Final Out Ball. The baseball that was the final out in the 2004 World Series win by the Boston Red Sox is currently the subject of an ownership dispute. The Bosox back-up first baseman, Doug Mientkiewicz , caught the ball and kept it. The team wants it back, but the player views it as his kid’s college fund. How much will someone pay for it?
Price is, of course, affected by rarity, and as I mentioned, the John Ball is one-of-a-kind. Of the millions of Major League baseballs that have been stitched in the past one-hundred-fifty years or so, this is THE ONLY one that has been fouled-off to me. That should be worth something.
Also, I have heard it said that the value of an object is affected by the regard in which it has been held. While looking at simple hand-made chairs at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, I learned that those babies fetch up to ten grand apiece, mainly because their makers believed truly that an angel might someday descend from Heaven and sit on one of them. Well, it was nearly a religious experience when I got the John Ball, so that should count for something too.
A story. Every “priceless” object, be it Hope Diamond, Faberge egg, or Declaration of Independence, needs a good story behind it. Well, John Ball has a story, and I will let the reader judge how worthy it may be.
The story begins at Sportsman’s Park on an overcast day in June, 1960. Well, ok, the name of Sportsman’s Park had been changed to Busch Stadium in 1953, but I had not yet adjusted to this, and so I still called it Sportsman’s Park. My brother Jim Shawcross and my friend Dennis Haley and I (his name had been changed to Dennis Pezzani, but I had not adjusted to this yet either) had gone to Sportsman’s Park to watch our beloved St. Louis Cardinals play the Pittsburgh Pirates.
In the fourth inning, I decided I needed a hot dog. No in-stand vendors were in the vicinity, so I walked behind the stands, to the concession booth located in the interior of the park, behind the home plate section.
Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, MO (1902-1966)
I purchased one red hot (a ball park frank) and slathered the bun with yellow mustard. Then I re-entered the stands and started walking back to my seat. As I emerged into the stands, I was behind the screen that protected the people sitting directly behind home plate, but I could see that the batter was the St. Louis Cardinal third baseman, Ken Boyer.
Ken Boyer
The pitcher was former-Cardinal Vinegar Bend Mizell, who had recently been traded to the Pirates for second baseman Julian Javier. I figured it was probably the first time Ken had ever faced the pitching of his ex-teammate, a 6’ 3” 203 lb. starter who had control problems.
Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell
I watched as Ken Boyer fouled off the next pitch. It zinged into the stands, just wide of the screen behind home plate. Too far from me, as usual.
I had been to so many Cardinal games, sometimes optimistically bringing my glove so that I could snag a few fouls, but none had ever come close enough so that I had a reasonable chance. Now, here it was happening again. I was used to it.
But wait! The ball avoided eagerly outstretched hands, smacked into a railing and took a pool-cushion angle bounce toward me!
The section of the stadium I was in was full of crazy angles. Home plate was the epicenter of a collision between the tectonic plates of right field and left field, where straight lines suddenly realized that a curve was needed, and angles piled up upon angles in this train-wreck crazy quilt section of the park.
Ha Ha! So much the better for me. The ball bounced across the walkway toward me. My eyes must have bulged in astonishment. I took a step toward it, but I was too late, it had crossed the walkway and dropped behind some empty seats to my left. Suddenly, to my horror, I could see that I had competition for this ball. A kid my size emerged out of nowhere and started crawling on his hands and knees through the railings and under the seats, homing in on the ball! Amazingly, I can still “see” this kid in my memory. He was wearing a gray car coat and matching cap (note to self: whatever happened to car coats?).
But, hey! That is MY ball, bucko! He wasn’t going to get it without a fight. I could see that he had a head start on me, with his crawling-on-all-fours approach. Ok, he had ground superiority, so I would launch an air strike. Without a second thought, I took a couple of running steps and then dove head-first into the air, flying over the railings, the wood and metal seats, the concrete flooring, and the kid in the car coat.
I came down on top of some empty seats. My feet were in the air, but my left arm was outstretched toward the ground and my prize! The ball was just about to roll down another step! If it did, I would probably lose it to my evil rival, who seemed to be gaining on me. With a final desperate lunge, my hand closed on the ball just as it was poised to fall down the next step. That moment is frozen in time for me now. I can look at the mental picture of it whenever I like. I HAD THE BALL.
What I didn’t have was any semblance of balance. I was almost literally standing on one arm, with my legs draped across the chair backs behind me. I struggled to my feet. For a split-second, I worried that some of the men in the stands might try to wrest the ball from me. I scanned the crowd, looking for threats. Instead, I got applause. People were applauding me! I suppose car-coat wasn’t, but I never looked back at him.
I am fairly certain that my feet never touched the ground as I skipped back to my seat where, as casually as I could, I extended my left arm to Jim and Dennis and said, “Look what I got.”
As my now bug-eyed companions salivated over my trophy, I settled back in my seat and raised my nearly forgotten right hand, which all this time had been patiently holding my hot dog. I took a deep satisfying chomp of mustard and bun, but no hot dog. In the excitement, I had increased my grip, and the hot dog had squirted out somewhere under the empty seats behind home plate.
I didn’t care. I had my ball. The first of who knew how many more to come? (Feb 2005 update: none, so far). I didn’t see Dennis the rest of the game. He went into the upper right field stands, in hopes that a batter would foul one up there, and he could get a ball too. There weren’t many fans up there, so his logic seemed sound, but no balls went into the upper right field deck that afternoon.
In fact, the game did not last much longer. The overcast skies turned darker, and it began to rain. As we waited to see if the game would resume (it didn’t), Jim, Dennis, and I went over toward the Cardinal dugout to see if any players would autograph my ball. I was hoping for my hero, Stan “The Man” Musial, but I would take anyone, Kenny Boyer, Ernie Broglio, Wally Moon, whomever.
I couldn’t see into the dugout, so I called out, asking if anyone was there. A wiry little man, who appeared old enough to be Methuselah’s grandfather, stepped out. He was wearing a Cardinal uniform, but surely he couldn’t be a player! He looked antediluvian.
Johnny Keane
Recovering from my shock at seeing him, I asked if there were any players in the dugout who could autograph my baseball.
“No, they’ve all gone inside to the locker room. But I’ll sign it for you.”
Well, I had said that I would take anyone’s signature . . . and he was wearing a Cardinal uniform, so OK! I handed him the ball.
“You got a pen?”
No. I didn’t! Was I supposed to have provided a pen? I never carried a pen on me and had never thought to bring one. Suddenly, an unknown man nearby handed me his ballpoint pen. I couldn’t believe my good luck.
Methuselah’s grandfather took the pen and started writing. He was having trouble writing (probably too old to write; I hoped he would live long enough to complete his signature).
“This pen is out of ink.” He handed the pen and the ball back to me. The ball now had “John” written upon it. No surname. I thanked him, and went back into the stadium (it was starting to rain harder). Jim, Dennis and I looked for his uniform number on a scorecard.
“John Keane. Third base coach.” Oh. Never heard of him! Johnny Keane would go on next year to replace Solly Hemus as manager of the Cardinals, and in 1964 would lead the Red Birds to a World Series victory over the Yankees, only to die 7 Jan 1967 of a heart attack at age 55. Yes, that incredibly ancient looking man (ancient to thirteen year old me) was 49.
All right, so the autograph “John” might not be what I was hoping for, but obviously this was my lucky day, so I decided to see if I could get into the locker room. This was pre-911, and security wasn’t as tight then as it is now.
The door to the locker room was slightly ajar. Suddenly, Ernie Broglio, today’s Cardinal pitcher, walked by!
“Mr. Broglio! Could you sign my ball?”
“Sure, kid! Got a pen?”
Rats! When would I learn? I still didn’t have a pen. Then a fascist security guard chased me away. Oh, but life was still sweet, I had my “John Ball.”
That is the story. So, how much would you pay for the John Ball now? But wait! There’s more . . .
I went home from the game that day, and suddenly it was 1997 and I was old as Johnny Keane and had a son of my own (and a lovely daughter, who has passing little interest in baseball). I received a letter from my alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis, advising that WU had a special event planned in my part of Florida. The St. Louis Cardinals would be playing a Spring Training game against the New York Mets in Jupiter, Florida, and a special section would be set aside for WU alumni. I decided to take my son to the game (Lauren wasn’t interested in going).
“Let’s bring the John Ball,” I said to Michael, “maybe we can get some more autographs on it.” Secretly, I was hoping for some surnames this time!
We arrived at the ballpark, and sure enough, some of the younger players were giving autographs. I hadn’t kept up with the Cardinals, and I didn’t know whom any of the young players were. Two of the players signed the John Ball for us. I smiled with satisfaction as I noted they included surnames on the ball.
So! Who did we have? History repeating itself, I reached for a scorecard and looked for them. Ah ha! We had two young pitchers – John Frascatore (No. 50) and Curtis King. Hopefully, they would go on to become Hall of Famers (Feb 2005 update: John played seven seasons, for three teams, amassing a career record of twenty wins and seventeen losses. Curtis played two seasons for the Cardinals and had a cup of coffee with them (two games) in a third season, compiling a lifetime 6-2 record.)
Just then, I heard something behind us, and as I turned, I was amazed to see my idol, Stan “The Man” Musial, on the platform behind us. As it turned out, I was seeing what I wanted to see. What I was seeing was the owner of the Cardinals baseball team (who bears a striking resemblance to Stan Musial, I must say). His name was Bill DeWitt.
The person who introduced Bill as a speaker mentioned that Bill’s uniform was in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, NY. Bill explained that his dad had given him a uniform when his dad was part owner of the St. Louis Browns baseball team (now known as the Baltimore Orioles).
On August 19, 1951 at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, the majority owner of the Browns, Bill Veeck, sent to the plate a 37” midget named Eddie Gaedel. Eddie was instructed to crouch low and not swing his bat. With his one and one-half inch strike zone, Eddie was walked on four pitches. He received a standing ovation as he was replaced immediately by a pinch runner.
The uniform that Eddie wore that day was the one that belonged to young Bill DeWitt. It had been modified to include the number 1/8 on the back. The uniform is now enshrined at Cooperstown.
The above photo, taken in Boca Raton, FL on 9 February 2005,
shows a reunion of the left hand of Tom Shawcross and the John Ball.
Photo credit: The right hand of TWS
I suppose Ernie Broglio is still rummaging around in the St. Louis Cardinal locker room, looking for a pen. When I told him I didn’t have a pen, he said he would go get one and would be right back. We waited. As Jim recalls it, we waited until the stadium was nearly deserted, and we missed our ride home on the Red Bird Express. He says we had to call for a ride home.
That sounds about right. Jim may remember this better than I do. As Jim recalls it, we tried first to get Ernie Broglio’s signature, and while he was looking for a pen, we snuck past “No Admittance” signs into the Cardinal dugout and found Johnny Keane. In Jim’s memory of this day, Johnny tried to sign the ball, but his pen ran out of ink. I went into the stands to borrow a pen, but by the time I got back, Johnny Keane was gone. So, now you have three stories about the John Ball! Now, how much would you pay?
posted by Tom Shawcross | 9:24 AM
1 Comments:
I just love your story!
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