Early 1960's Yogi Berra Game Worn Catcher's Mitt. As tough as Hall of Fame jerseys are to locate and acquire, the game used...

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Early 1960's Yogi Berra Game Worn Catcher's Mitt. As tough as Hall of Fame jerseys are to locate and acquire, the game used glove or mitt has always been considerably more difficult. The reasoning is simple to understand. The attachment between a Big League ballplayer and his mitt is a visceral thing. Whereas most see uniforms as inconsequential, nothing more than mere clothing, the glove is an instrument of the trade, a constant companion, a friend. Bats get cracked, uniforms are torn or outdated, but the glove only improves with age, and remains the least likely game used piece with which any ballplayer is likely to part. Thankfully for one lucky Heritage bidder, the great New York Yankees catcher did indeed part with this "Spalding 1413" model mitt at some point in the early 1960's, giving it to his buddy Mickey Mantle for display at his fellow Hall of Famer's Holiday Inn hotel in Joplin, Missouri. It was later transferred for display to another Holiday Inn in which Mantle was an investor, this hotel in Baxter Spring, Kansas. When this location was either closed or sold, Mantle's mentor and co-investor Harold Youngman donated the glove to the town's Little League Museum in the early 1980's before finally being purchased from that location about ten years ago.

The mitt shows strong use from its days of Yankee action, and one can only imagine what historic games it saw. The early 1960's, the era from which this mitt derives, was filled with pinstriped glory, with pennants, World Championships and the famous Mantle/Maris home run chase. We can make no claims about this glove's specific use in historic games, but odds are strong that any mitt from this era would have seen Championship action. Speaking to the physical specifics of the mitt, we begin with the "Larry Yogi Berra" facsimile signature stamped into the heel below the pocket. The model number app

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