1918 Boston Red Sox Team Signed Baseball with World Series Game Use Attribution....

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Ruth himself signs this "Curse of the Bambino" memento!

1918 Boston Red Sox Team Signed Baseball with World Series Game Use Attribution. Even now, with three World Championships already on the books in these early years of the twenty-first century, the mention of "The Curse of the Bambino" still sends a chill up the spines of New Englanders. Countless millions who passed through the turnstiles of Fenway Park were born and died during that eighty-six years of darkness, and though we've recently seen one form or rain or another come to the drought-stricken cities of Cleveland and Chicago, the knowledge that such suffering could happen--has happened--is always with us.

How charmingly naive the original owner of this sphere must have been as he watched the Red Sox claim the team's fourth World Championship of his seven years of life, though likely no more certain than the adults who ferried him to the ballpark to witness the 1918 World Series that the joy would last forever. That boy's name--Elmer--is written in vintage ink on the sweet spot of this OAL (Johnson) sphere, in the same hand that states, "From [illegible], World Series 1918."

Joining that ancient text are the signatures of approximately twenty-five members of the last Boston Red Sox World Championship edition to assemble before Elmer's ninety-third birthday. Babe Ruth, the man for whom the impending Curse was named, is among the boldest of the signers at perhaps 3/10. Other identifiable names include Barrow, Strunk, Mays, Schang, Jones, Miller and Shean.

Certainly a century's passage has claimed much, if not all, of the legibility of most signers, but with known examples of 1918 BoSox team balls calculable on a single hand, one must forfeit typical condition gripes. And the heightened appeal of this model, through its likely participation in World Series action, should even further silence the critics. When this ball original sold in 2005 for $20,900, it was joined by a letter of provenance from Elmer's family, but that letter has since been lost. This is its first auction appearance since that original sale. Full LOA from James Spence Authentication.