May continues to be a great month for world class pickups.
Here is my latest, a game used baseball from Nolan Ryan's 2nd career no-hitter on 7/15/73 at DET.
Ryan fanned 17 in this game and, according to Nolan himself, this was his best pitched game in the big leagues.
Tigers Norm Cash pranked the futility of trying to hit off of Nolan by arriving to the plate with a table leg instead of a bat with two outs in the bottom of the 9th. Home plate umpire Ron Luciano had him get rid of the table leg and replace it with a real bat, but not before it got a laugh out of everyone that was in on the gag. It didn't matter because Cash immediately grounded out to end the game. The Detroit Free Press interviewed several of the hometown Tigers after the game. Tigers skipper Billy Martin stated that "Ryan had everything" that night. Nolan's 2nd no-hitter in as many months in 1973 ranks right up there as arguably one of the most dominating game's ever pitched.
This ball came from the private collection of one of the most advanced Ryan collectors, and close personal friend, and hasn't re-entered the hobby in perhaps 15+ years. It originated directly from one of the camera men that worked Ryan's 2nd no-hitter game and saved a ball that was fouled off a Ryan pitch that ended up in the camera well. He was fortunate enough to get Nolan to sign the ball after the game...
Here are a few other items that I have in my collection related to Nolan's 2nd no-hitter game. The game used catchers mitt was used by Nolan's Angels battery mate Art Kusnyer in the early innings of this game. Kusnyer switched catchers mitts after the third inning when he developed a fairly substantial tear in the mitt's pocket from Ryan's supercharged heater that day.