Inside a Baseball
 

In case you were curious, but afraid to try it yourself - Inside a 1956 New York Yankees team-signed Offical AL Reach ball.

The dog started it and I finished the job.

Ouch.

ouch is right how nice was the ball

It was horrid, but the 'Mantle/Berra' panel was good.

A dog got hold of the ball (way before I bought it), and ripped one of the panels to pieces. It was bad enough that I just got stink-faces when I brought it to shows. I purchased it with the intention of replacing the worst parts, but it didn't take me long to figure out that not just me, but NO ONE had the skills to do such a thing. Fortunately, I paid '1956 Mantle autograph' price for it, so the goal at this point is to salvage all I can from the ball, and create a nice display.

I literally felt nauseous as I cut up the ball this morning. And after testing one of the panel pieces - lightly spraying with distilled water prior to pressing - I got nauseous again when it began yellowing in random spots and wrinkling when I tried to flatten it.

So far, kind of a horror, but anyone who knows me knows that I'll work on this until I have success.

Here are the separated pieces:

Here's the mock-up of the desired final piece:

The baseball deconstruction inspired the artist at one point. (Harder to sell than the ubiquitous Mickey Mantle paintings)

http://ettinger.ca/wp-content/upload...30-624x494.jpg

Now the one on the right looks like mine did, only yours is better.

The flattening of the baseball panels is not going well - it looks like there will be, at best, permanent tiny wrinkles, and at worst, yellow splotching.

My inclination is to flatten only slightly, to reduce wrinkling to almost nothing - it also protects the Mantle-Berra panel. The result would force me to separate all the panels as shown in the left-hand mock-up, and the panels would remain somewhat rounded, like on a real baseball, as opposed to flat as shown in the right-hand mock-up.

Thoughts are appreciated as I'm about to commit.

I like the look of the one on the left a bit better. It draws more attention to the Mantle/Berra sweetspot portion, which looks good in the dead-center. Just my personal preference... If it helps with the "flattening", that might be an added plus.

The Ball is already altered, so 2 more cuts shouldn't really make a difference...

I agree. The one on the left frames better and layers out the signatures better. Please continue to update. I think it's a great idea for a tough situation.
Drew

Another suggestion I received was to frame the Mantle/Berra piece with a nice 1956 photo of the two of them together.

I'm leaning toward that, but I have nothing to lose by creating the one on the left first, and seeing how it looks.

other options. All photos are 1956 except the one where Mantle is in the extreme foreground - that one had Maris off to the side, so was 1960s.

Why not try to resew the leather onto a cheap ball- and try to tone the "new pieces" just enough to make it less noticeable.

They are sewn together by hand any way. All it'll require is time.

That was my original plan, but it's not as easy as you might think. Even if I could have done it, it would have involved sewing a blank piece of leather where a partial piece had been left by the dog, and there weren't stitch holes remaining - it would have involved glueing pieces on that included stitching on one side. In any event, it's too late for that now - I'm committed to one of the mock-ups shown above, or something similar.

While ghetto - you might have been able to use duct tape on the inside of the leather and used an exacto knife to get the right size to sew effortlessly and make it look clean as if one piece.

Are there any other notables on the ball? If not- I'd go with the mantle and Berra piece alone. It looks clean and meant to be that way.

You could also possibly do something like this- but I like the photo ideas better.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MzkxWDU1MA...nsg~~60_35.JPG

Agree.... Great idea by whoever suggested the Mantle/Berra photo.

I like the cleaner look, and would opt for either the very first or very last photo posted above. Tough choice, but those were my personal faves!

Be sure to keep us posted and best of luck!

I like the idea of just the Mantle Berra.
I created a couple mock ups for you. Too bad I can't find a cleaner copy of the first photo. I like the second one with kids as well. Out of your mock ups, I think the first one is the best, by far.

What do you think?

Or this. You just have to imagine the auto matted similarly.

I like the silver

Thanks for the ideas. I like that photo with the bats pointing out, and I have a hi-res copy - the problem is cleaning it up. I might work on it a little and make a print - see how it looks.

I agree. I found the same copy, but lots of editors marks still left. Good luck with the clean up.
Make sure you post the final product.

The matting/frame needs to be changed, but is the content too busy?

This is why you shouldn't keep your treasures near the pets! :(

I'd create a custom 1956 Topps themed cut card of the SweetSpot.

It would marry the year to a card and is clean and compact.

That's certainly true;however, I bought this ball already massacred. The mauling might have taken place in 1957 for all I know. But I do know that the ball looked horrible chewed up - I could barely stand to look at it.

Out of the blue (so to speak), my girlfriend said she like the following arrangement of colors, so it's done...for now. I chose this print partially because they both looked young and happy, which they should have been in '56, and also because they were photographed with the top of the dugout behind them - re-cropped the image to make it more Conlon-esque.

I did the work myself with existing materials, so it was free and can easily be changed at some point.

The tricky part was flattening the panel and sewing it to the matt-board - done by using transparent thread and only sewing through existing holes at the top. I only flattened as much as necessary, as the leather surface would begin to wrinkle. Used spacers to keep the leather off the glass.

Thanks for all your ideas and responses:

I love that image! It looks great, Scott...

Another option (that would be attractive IMO) would be to do a second rectangular cut-out in the mat. The second cut-out would be for the leather Ball Panel below the photo.

I really think it would serve to enhance the important signed portion, and also provide symmetry. That way, the photo and Ball Panel would both be recessed.

I would do it this way, but that's just me :p

Mark, you and I are thinking alike - I planned to do the cut-out you describe, partially so the panel would not have to be flattened as much. Just lazy at this point and tired of working on it.

Do you think the recessed area should be the same color as the matt, lighter or darker?

Also, based on comments from another friend, I'm probably taking it back to the framer this weekend.

That's cool :cool:

I think that a darker brown (to match the frame) might be nice for the recessed area. It would provide a nice contrast against the lighter cream-colored leather.

Maybe someone (with better photoshopping skills than me) can play around with potential options. But I'd lean towards a dark brown backing.

Mark, that's a great idea. I'm just going to sit on it for a while. The main thing was to get it in displayable condition without damaging the panel. I'll leave it to a professional to do the final work, but in the meantime it will still look good on my wall, right next to my Babe Ruth piece.