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The Babe answers questions

Submitted by SHNS on Wed, 10/29/2008 - 17:46

Dear Babe: I have a booklet "Line Drives at the Pittsburgh Pirates'' copyright 1910 by the Pittsburgh Press. It's about 8-x-10. It has pages with pictures and brief descriptions of players (usually four to a page) and pages with facts and figures on the team. Honus Wagner has his own page. -- Tom Barefoot, Redding, Calif."This is an early form of what we call 'yearbooks' today,'' said Mike Heffner, president of www.lelands.com auction house in South Dennis, Mass. "Value is around $1,000.''It was not re-printed. Your booklet celebrates the Pirates 1909 World Series win over the Detroit Tigers in seven games. While Wagner hit .333, with seven RBIs and six stolen bases, it was pitcher Babe Adams who stole the show for the Pirates winning three including an 8-0 in the Game 7 clincher. Ty Cobb did not fare as well. It was his last Series appearance and he struggled to a .231 average, but he did steal home once and led Detroit with six RBI. Dear Babe: We have a golf ball signed by the Stanford team including Tiger Woods from when his college team played at a Druid Hills Country Club event in Atlanta. It was a gift to us from someone who was an officer at the club. It looks like it has five signatures. The ones I can read are Woods, Notah Begay III, Casey Martin and Steve Burdick. -- P. Hayes, Braselton, Ga. "...It's tough to get multiple people on a single golf ball that already has a logo on it,'' said Theo Chen, owner of tchen002@san.rr.com. "If real, it probably is worth in the neighborhood of $1,500-$3,000 depending on condition, location and legibility of the autographs.''Mike Heffner, president of www.lelands.com auction house in South Dennis, Mass, valued it at around $500, saying all the value was in the Woods autograph. I'm sure Heffner's estimate factors in the difficulty in reading names on a golf ball and the fact that with all those signatures, they have to be pretty small.Da Babe answered another question a couple of years ago about that Stanford visit to the Atlanta area. That reader said that Druid Hills hosted an exhibition match between Stanford and Georgia Tech in 1994. He had a signed picture with the fifth golfer being William Yanagisawa. According to the Stanford athletic Web site Woods did not letter in 1994 and Burdick was gone in 1995. It's possible the match was played after the 1994 collegiate season and before the 1995 campaign began. Dear Babe: I have been a sports enthusiast most of my 69 years. In the 1960s, I began saving ticket stubs from every sporting event that I attended. I now have five individual matted frames each containing 75 to 100 stubs. They include, among others, a badge from the 1986 Masters, a stub from the 1991 Super Bowl and a stub from the final NCAA basketball game in 1982. -- Mike Michaelis, Duluth, GA There are far too many tickets to consider before you can put a value on the entire display. I did check with Chris Nerat, a Sports Collectors Digest columnist for values on a few of them. The 1982 NCAA finals basketball game saw Michael Jordan leap to national prominence when he hit the jumper that gave North Carolina's Dean Smith his first championship. That stub is worth $200, Nerat said. The badge from the 1986 Masters where Jack Nicklaus won his 18th and final major tournament is also worth $200, while the stub from 1991 Super Bowl checks in at $100. Dear Babe: I have a signed ball that Phil "Scooter'' Rizzuto signed in front of me a number of years ago when he was staying at a hotel where I was also staying. -- Sandi Ginsberg, AtlantaTuff Stuff lists a single-signed Rizzuto ball at $90. The Hall of Famer died in August, 2007.BABE NOTE: Jumbo swatch cards of Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan, and DeSean Jackson along with relic cards featuring all-time great such as a Joe Montana, Jim Brown, Frank Gifford, Sammy Baugh and Jerry Rice highlight 2008 Donruss Leaf Certified Materials Football. There are also limited autograph variations of the all-time greats' cards. For details, visit www.donruss.com.(Send card questions to Babe Waxpak, PO Box 492397, Redding, CA 96049-2397 or e-mail babewaxpak(at)charter.net. If possible, include card number, year and brand or a photocopy. Please do not send cards. For Babe Waxpak's blog, see www.scrippsnews.com/waxpak. Babe Waxpak is a feature of The Record Searchlight in Redding, Calif.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)