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1905 World Series Championship-Clinching Game Five Final Out Baseball....
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Description
Period newspaper article makes reference to Bresnahan's historic souvenir!
1905 World Series Championship-Clinching Game Five Final Out Baseball.UPDATE: Full letters of authenticity from James Spence Authentication and Brandon Grunbaum (author of "History of the Baseball") are included.
According to which source you'd care to believe, the inaugural 1903 World Series represented either a detente between the entrenched National League and the three-season old American League upstart, or an attempt by the Senior Circuit to end all questions of superiority with a public beat-down of the fledgling pretenders. If the latter tale is true, the plan was a bitter failure, as David slew Goliath in the inaugural edition to earn the legitimacy the National League had hoped to deny. The Boston Red Sox' upset victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates proved to be a seminal moment in the wider acceptance of the American League as a viable challenger, much to the National League's chagrin.
When John McGraw led his Giants to the National League flag in 1904 it appeared the World's Series tradition was doomed to end as quickly as it had begun, the gruff skipper declaring that New York was already World Champion and refusing to meet the pennant-winning Red Sox. But public pressure mounted over the course of the ensuing season, finally compelling the Hall of Fame manager to accept the American League challenge from the Philadelphia Athletics in 1905.
And so the second World Series in history brought the New York Giants and Philadelphia Athletics into battle, a Series packed to the gills with future Hall of Fame honorees: Plank, Waddell, Bender, Mack, Bresnahan, Mathewson, McGinnity and McGraw. After trading victories in the first two encounters, the Giants ran the table on the A's, taking the Series in five games. Presented is the ball that recorded the final out to clinch the first World Series in National League and Giants franchise history.
The Official American League (Ban Johnson) orb exhibits strong game use from an era when a single ball was used for multiple innings, and sometimes the entirety of a contest. Making use of the Bresnahan archives with which this baseball was consigned, autograph expert James Spence attributes the side panel writing to Roger Bresnahan's wife Gertrude, whose 8/10 period black fountain pen ink reports, "Ball with which the last game of the World's Championship Series was played."
The tale becomes even more thrilling as we encounter as we find reference to the souvenir in an October 1905 newspaper clipping within a Bresnahan scrapbook, headlined, "Bresnahan Home for the Winter: Giants' Superb Backstop Gives Large Credit to Mathewson for New York's Victory over Philadelphia--Brought Home Last Ball Pitched in the Series." This would represent a Christy Mathewson pitch to Athletics third baseman Lave Cross, who grounded to Giants shortstop Bill Dahlen, who then threw to first baseman Dan McGann to record the last out.
With elite early World Series significance, Hall of Fame legend association and ironclad, eleven-decade old provenance, the baseball ranks among the most significant Fall Classic relics ever to emerge within the collecting hobby. Letter of provenance from the Bresnahan family.
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