Offered is a cigar box commemorating the return of the Major League Baseball players who went on a World Tour in early 1914.  The 1 x2½ x 5 ½-inch white paper and wood cigar box has a lid with white paper label with gold lettering, “HOME COMING DINNER MARCH 7th, 1914 THE BILTMORE NEW YORK” across the top with seven images of baseball players around the edges.  The label is also present on the underside of the lid, along with the notation “MADE BY H. ANTON BOCK & CO. NEW YORK.”  There is a small hole in the bottom center edge of the lid with a metal grommet.  Around the four edges of the box are the dates and cities of the 1914 world tour, along with the legend “WORLD’S TOURISTS” in the front. On the underside of the box is stamped into the wood, “These cigars are removed from a package stamped according to statute.”  There is some flaking of the paper on the edges of the box. 

The instigators of the around-the-world series of games were John McGraw of the Giants, the most successful manager in baseball, and Charles Comiskey, owner of the White Sox. One night in December 1913, McGraw and Comiskey were having drinks at “Smiley” Mike Corbett’s bar on Chicago’s East Side, and the idea of a world tour came up.  The tour that McGraw and Comiskey envisioned would begin as a barnstorming trek across the country right after the 1913 World Series. Upon reaching the West Coast, the two teams boarded a ship to take them across the Pacific. The tour’s first stop on foreign soil would be in Tokyo and, going from east to west, the last one would be in London. In between the travelers would touch down in China, the Philippines, Egypt, Ceylon, France, and other countries. McGraw and Comiskey filled out most of the roster of current Giants and White Sox played, but they cast a wider net for a few famous and more colorful players. On board were future Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson, Tris Speaker, Urban Farber and “Wahoo” Sam Crawford.

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