Babe Ruth 100th Anniversary Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/12/2014
In a vote of baseball historians, the 1939 New York Yankees were ranked as the greatest single season team of all time. Yes, better than the 1927 Murderer’s Row lineup, and even better than the 1961 Yankees of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris fame. While the 1939 Yankees did not have the services of their star Lou Gehrig, who was battling his fatal disease, they were led by a lengthy lineup including veterans Joe DiMaggio, George Selkirk, Bill Dickey and Red Rolfe plus youngsters Joe Gordon, Charlie Keller and even Babe Dahlgren, who filled in admirably for the declining Gehrig. Each player in the starting lineup hit double digit home runs.
The pitching staff was a veteran bunch, and very deep, led by Hall of Famer Red Ruffing. Seven pitchers won ten or more games (led by Ruffing with 21) and eight different pitchers started eleven or more games. Two rookie pitchers who began the season for the Yankees in 1939 were Atley Donald and Marv Breuer, their top two hurlers from the Kansas City Blues, their top farm team. However, neither would pitch the first two weeks of the season until each made their major league debuts on May 4th in Cleveland near the beginning of a long five city road trip.
Donald threw 1.2 innings, allowing a hit and striking out two. Breuer, however, allowed a run in his single inning of two hits and a walk. Why is this significant? Well, it was likely a tryout of sorts for the ultimate tactician Joe McCarthy, who then shipped Breuer out the next day. Breuer would remain with Kansas City the balance of the season.
This 6.25” x 6.75” album page is signed by seven New York Yankee players from that team including Lou Gehrig (“6”), Joe DiMaggio (“8”), Lefty Gomez, Chas. “Red” Ruffing, Bump Hadley, George Selkirk and Marv Breuer. So this album page had to be signed during the Yankees first 11 games of the season. A few other signatures are listed, but these names are inconclusive. Every signature is in pencil, except for DiMaggio, whose bold black fountain pen signature stands out. The album page has some age, with a long vertical crease running the entire length, plus some light creasing and edge wear. Since Breuer was shipping out that next day, it is quite possible this album page was signed on May 2, 1939, the game which Gehrig pulled himself out of the lineup, when he told McCarthy he was talking himself out “for the good of the team.” Either way, this page was signed by Gehrig in one of his last games as a Yankee player.
The album page is handsomely matted and framed (15.5” x 23”) with a stock photo of Gehrig at his July 4, 1939 ceremony at home plate, Yankee team lined up behind their captain. Several of the many gifts presented to Lou that day are already spread out at home plate.
Very historical 1939 New York Yankees team signed page, from the greatest of all the Yankee World Series squads, signed early in the season before Gehrig took himself out of the lineup, playing his last game. This album page represents one of the final Gehrig signatures as a player during his final Yankee season. Full LOA from PSA/DNA. Full LOA from James Spence Authentication.