Auction Item Details
LOT 882
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Lot Number: 882
Description: Willie Mays game used professional model baseball glove c.1950's. Rawlings Mort Cooper professional model glove retaining its original red Rawlings label on the backstrap. Alongside of the Rawlings label is a faded "24" written in vintage black marker. The glove exhibits superb usage with pliable pocket and its original surface. The top area of the fingers has some period relacings and the backstrap retains its original Rawlings brass button. Players such as Ruth, Mantle, Clemente, and Cobb are generally mentioned within any discussion of the greatest baseball players in Major League history. It is interesting to note, however, that among baseball purists and former Major League players the almost unanimous choice for the greatest all around player is Willie Mays. The pure statistics certainly support the consensus but do not tell the whole story: 2,062 runs scored; 3,283 hits; 523 doubles; 660 home runs; 1,903 RBI's; lifetime batting average of .302; and twenty All-Star game appearances. Mays' abilities in the field were equally, if not more, impressive. During the first game of the 1954 World Series, Giants pitcher Don Liddle served up a long fly ball to deep center field to the Indians' Vic Wertz. Mays proceeded to race towards the center field wall at the Polo Grounds and made an over the shoulder catch that simply defied physical ablities with a Mort Cooper model glove very much like the offered example. Willie Mays and his manager Durocher were very close as Mays played under Leo during his formative early years in the Major Leagues from 1951-55. With respect to dating period, condition, originality, rarity, and unimpeachable provenance, we are not aware of a finer Willie Mays game used glove to have been offered publicly. Includes letter of provenance from the Durocher family and LOA from Hunt Auctions: EX
Estimated Price: ($30,000.00-$40,000.00)
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