Posted By:
CarltonHendricksMark,
I was afraid I'd get heat for going out to play!...Thanks for sticking with me...Im working on it. I dont want to make any more promises but I hope to have it finished soon!...One reason it's taken so long is its much bigger this year...plus designing all the pages so it looks snazzy takes nearly as long as writing the story...trust me its a bear...and then I get discouraged when I see how much farther I have to go, and leave off for a while...whine whine...plus I refuse to not have a life since its all pro bono
Ok I'm versed in all the details up to when Maris got the ball from Sam Gordon in Sacramento...then like I say, Maris died in 1985...so then what happened to it?...what happened to the ball between the time Maris died and it went into the HOF?
Corey, Are you saying it went from Maris to Halper?...and then got plucked by the Hall with the eight million?..If so, what are the details of how Halper came into it?did Halper camp out in Maris widows front yard in a pup tent?
I learned about that cherry pick of Halpers stuff by the HOF while writing about the Muller clock...I sort of stumbled onto it, and wrote about my findings in the last two paragraphs of the story, see below:
http://sportsantiques.com/muller_basball_clock_page_2.htm
STORY QUOTE - LAST TWO PARAGRAPHS
I couldnt help notice there wasnt an example of the clock in the 1999 Sothebys auction catalog of the famous Barry Halper baseball collection. It was the worlds greatest collection so I thought it was a little curious he didnt have an example. Then thru some dizzying array of research I happened upon a page of the National Baseball Hall of Fames web site www.baseballhalloffame.org that lists a portion of items from Halpers collection acquired by Major League Baseball and donated to the Hall of Fame in November 1998. And what do you know.there was a small little notation included in the 19th century items that said Wonderful antique clock with 19th century ball players
I called John Odell at the Hall to inquire a little about the circumstances of how it happened to have gotten included in the acquisition. Specifically I wanted to know if Halper just happened to offer it, or if the Hall pursued it. Bingo, John told me it was the Halls initiative. John basically told me that when Halper was going to sell his collection, the Hall wanted certain things to fill holes and strengthen theres. Major League Baseballs deeper pockets came to the rescue and retrieved some items the Hall wanted. Now Im getting into a whole other story to pursue, but anyway..the bottom line was the Hall specifically requested our infamous Muller clock.
END STORY QUOTE