Vintage ball and Boxscore
 

So I picked up one of the Rube Walberg balls from ebay. And was wondering if anyone knew how many balls hey used back then And if someone can read this boxscore to see who made the last out. I think it's Don Heffner but not 100% sure. Ball is from a game between the Red Sox's and Yankees on July 3rd 1934, best thing Ruth and Gehrig played and Gehrig had a homerun this game.

New York Yankees AB R H RBI BB SO PO A
Crosetti ss 6 1 1 2 0 0 4 3
Saltzgaver 3b 6 0 2 0 0 0 0 1
Ruth rf 3 2 1 0 3 2 2 0
Walker pr 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Gehrig 1b 5 3 2 1 1 0 7 0
Chapman cf 6 0 1 2 0 2 2 1
Dickey c 5 1 3 3 1 0 8 1
Hoag lf 5 0 1 0 1 0 3 0
Heffner 2b 4 0 1 0 1 1 7 4
Ruffing p 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1
Van Atta p 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Byrd ph 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
Grimes p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Jorgens ph 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Murphy p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Totals 43 9 13 9 8 6 33 12
FIELDING -
DP: 2. Ruffing-Crosetti-Gehrig, Crosetti-Heffner-Gehrig.
E: Heffner (10).
BATTING -
2B: Gehrig (20); Dickey (19).
3B: Chapman (9).
HR: Crosetti (5,8th inning off Walberg 0 on); Gehrig (21,2nd inning off H.
Johnson 0 on); Van Atta (1,5th inning off H. Johnson 0 on).
SH: Murphy (2).
Team LOB: 10.

Hi Brock,

It looks like Myril Hoag was the last out -- he and everyone above him had six plate appearances. Heffner had only five, which would have meant that he was on deck when the last out was made.

Greg

Actually, it looks like Myril Hoag was the last batter. Looks like he was the last player in the lineup to have 6 plate appearances and Heffner was the next batter in the line up and had 5 plate appearances.

Greg, looks like you beat me by a couple of minutes!

Thanks Greg and Mike.

So i wonder whether this ball ever faced Gehrig?

I found out something cool about our friend Rube Walberg. Babe Ruth hit 17 home runs off of Rube throughout his career. More than any other pitcher.

Packs,


Thats very cool. I think its awesome that Gehrig hit a homerun in the same game my ball is from. Any cool facts from your game ball.

I'm wondering if the same baseball was used throughout most of the game back then and that foul balls and homeruns were retreived from the fans? Does anybody know when the transition occured when they started letting the fans keep the balls that went out of play?

Rob M.

I'm pretty sure that as late as 1930 teams were still pressing charges against fans who didn't return foul balls. I know that there were teams who let the fans keep foul balls at their home stadium, but I don't think that became the norm until the late 1920s/early 1930s.

Not sure if the rule applied to home runs.