1943 National League All-Star Team Signed Baseball

Appraised on: July 24, 2010

Appraised in: Biloxi, Mississippi

Appraised by: Mike Gutierrez

Category: Sports Memorabilia

Episode Info: Biloxi, Hour 2 (#1514)

Originally Aired: May 9, 2011

IMAGE: 1 of 1  

Appraisal Video: (2:22)

GUEST: It went from my grandfather to my father, down to me. My grandfather got it from Mr. Claude Passeau, who's on the All-Stars, signed on the front of the baseball. Mr. Passeau lived in Lucedale, which is my hometown. My grandfather and him were buddies. My father and Claude Jr. were best friends. My middle name is actually Claude, so I'm named after Mr. Passeau. Wednesday nights, we'd go out and see Mr. Passeau and just listen to all the stories that he told about baseball and about how it was back then. Pretty amazing, he's a special person. If you watch the All-Star game to this day, they always show Ted Williams hitting... the 1941 All-Star game, hitting that home run. Well, Mr. Passeau was the guy who was pitching when he hit that home run.

APPRAISER: That's amazing. Well, first thing I notice is that it's from 1943, it's a National League All-Star team ball. These are pretty rare in that it's all these players playing one day, one game, and then they go back to their regular season. It being during the war years, the war really took a lot of great players out of baseball at that time. And it affected the American League most noticeably because of the absence of Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Amongst others. Now, you'd asked me earlier if there was a name here that was in the Hall of Fame. You actually have nine Hall of Famers on this ball. Let's take a look. We've got Enos Slaughter, Johnny Mize. Manager Bill McKechnie. Al Lopez, Mel Ott-- who's probably the most famous name on this particular ball-- Billy Herman, and on this final panel here we've got Leo Durocher, Carl Hubbell and Arky Vaughn. Now, you've got these nine great Hall of Famers and they're in the twilight of their career, so they didn't get picked to go to the war. (chuckling) The condition is really high grade. And a ball this scarce from this era, I believe, in auction, will bring about $2,500.

GUEST: (chuckles) Wow.