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Howard W. RosenbergThanks to Craig for the correction, especially because it reminds me of another story relating to one of Barry’s most treasured holdings. I guess I had been under the assumption that Barry had mainly donated stuff to the Hall of Fame, and had asked him once whether he might try to use his influence to get the Hall of Fame to downplay its embrace of Abner Doubleday. Well, obviously since he sold his stuff mainly or entirely rather than donated it, then he wouldn’t have as much clout as I had assumed.
I raised the point about Doubleday because one of Barry’s favorite possessions was an old baseball that had been from the possessions of New York Knickerbocker Alexander Cartwright (Cartwright being someone who is at least a lot closer to the true origins of the sport than Doubleday). Cartwright is the person with the earliest year of birth (1820) to be a member of the Hall of Fame. If I recall correctly, Barry visited Hawaii to get the ball and he had an interesting story about coming across the item.