Lot # 852: Babe Ruth & Billy Evans Dual-Signed OAL Baseball with Full PSA LOA

A pair of revered Hall of Famers return to view, with this “Babe” Ruth and Billy Evans dual-signed baseball. Evans became the youngest umpire in MLB history, when he began officiating games at the age of 22, in 1906. Capping off twenty-two years of play calling, Evans finished the umpiring portion of his lengthy baseball career in 1927. Though somewhat compromised by attrition, this century-old, red and blue stitched baseball still shows enough factory labeling detail to indicate it is consistent in characteristics to the Reach 1927 Official American League Ban Johnson model.  While everyone knows Ruth’s story, we would feel remiss, if we didn’t mention that the 1927 New York Yankees season is widely considered one of the greatest in baseball history. That year, Ruth broke his own single-season home run record by hitting sixty. For context on what a super-human Ruth was, he hit more homers than any other American League team totaled in 1927, for an entire roster. Evans (d.1956) has signed on the sweet spot of the offered baseball, and Ruth (d.1948) has signed on the east panel, above the Reach factory logo. Though these prized signatures have faded, they retain sufficient integrity to make positive identification easy. There were ample opportunities to collect the signatures of Ruth and Evans at the same game in 1927, including the season opener at Yankee Stadium, when Evans worked the plate, and Ruth batted third against "Lefty" Grove of the Philadelphia Athletics.

Full LOA from PSA/DNA.