A variety of baseballs and photos related to the history of Japan-U.S. baseball interchanges were auctioned on Tuesday at New York's Sotheby's, with a ball signed by Babe Ruth sold for $57,000 attesting to the consistently strong popularity of the U.S. major league slugger.
A ball autographed by Babe Ruth is sold for $57,000 in an auction on Tuesday at New York's Sotheby's. KYODO PHOTOThe New York-based auction house would not identify the winner of the historic ball.
The ball was autographed when 18 select U.S. major league players visited Japan to play a series of Japan-U.S. All-Star games in 1934, which later prompted Japan to inaugurate its pro baseball.
Sold for $52,800 was a ball signed by the members of the U.S. team. The photo signed by Ruth and Lou Gehrig was sold for $19,200.
Meanwhile, a group photo signed by players of the Dai Nippon Tokyo Yakyu Kurabu, currently known as the Yomiuri Giants, was auctioned for $7,200. The photo was taken when they visited the United States in 1935 — the first U.S. trip by a pro baseball team from Japan.
The players included right-handed pitchers Eiji Sawamura and Victor Starffin.
All of those historic balls and photos were collected by Mitsuhiko Fujita, a grandson of Denzaburo Fujita, the founder of the Fujita "zaibatsu," a financial group, between 1928 and 1954, with many of them autographed.
Mitsuhiko took those photos himself at ballparks, developed them at his home and then went back to the parks to obtain autographs from players, according to a Sotheby's official.
The collection comprises "so much history of Japan," said Kevin Shwartz, a specialist at Sotheby's. "It gathered a lot of attention from Japanese collectors and baseball fans."