Brian's Baseball Heaven

This gal I teach with at Burnsville High School has told me about her husband's love for baseball memorabilia. She invited our family over for a visit to view his collection of signed jerseys, baseballs, pictures, figures, etc. (Pete Rose, Ted Williams, Michael Jordan, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris to name a few have signed his stuff) Needless to say, his collection blew me away. I'm pretty sure it is worth 100's of thousands of dollars. IN HIS BASEMENT NO LESS!

So how did this guy who is near retirement age collect all this stuff and have access to so many resources like signatures of hall of famers? His uncle was a lawyer for the Chicago Cubs way back when. He was in charge of a case that brought in to being the phrase that must be said during every radio and telecast of every MLB game. "This game cannot be rebroadcast or disseminated without written consent from the Commissioner..." His uncle actually wrote that exact script for MLB and the Cubs. WOW!! His uncle then started a law firm in NYC and represented MLB baseball in many historic cases including the Curt Flood lawsuit against MLB regarding free agency. Look it up on google if you want to know the details of that one. His uncle was later asked to be the commissioner of baseball and turned it down, but did assign Bowie Kuhn (his assistant to the job for MLB) DOUBLE WOW!! And there's more...the reason why the Washington Senators moved to MN was because this guy assigned them to MN and the New York Giants to San Fransisco. SO...to take this all into perspective, this lady I teach with is married to the nephew of one of the most influential people in baseball. This guy we visited is very good friends with the starting catcher from the 1961 Yankees, so that has also helped him a great deal in collecting the amazing memorabilia. He told me this story when we were visiting and while he was pitching tennis balls to Ben in his backyard. The guy just is an absolute baseball lover. He often drives to small towns on Sundays to watch amateur teams play even though he doesn't know a soul on either team. He just wants to watch baseball. His collection should be put on display in a museum somewhere. I'm sure it will be sometime in the future...it is just too valuable to keep stored in his basement.

He also has a signed baseball of all the hitters who have hit 500 HRs up to Eddie Murray. He has a signed baseball of all the 300 win pitchers. He has a signed baseball of the entire 1961 Yankees. And the list goes on...amazing stuff. The most amazing thing I saw was the signed authentic jersey of Pete Rose. He signed it "The hit king, Pete Rose #14" COOL STUFF.

I wish you could see it. It was incredible. -Brian


I was so blown away that I forgot to take pictures until the end. These don't do the collection justice at all, but here is a tiny glimpse of what he has.

Ben staring at valuable Pete Rose card (upper right-hand corner)





Entire '61 Yankees starting line-up





Click to enlarge Mickey Mantle case