|
Offered is an 8.5” x 11” document for a board of directors meeting for the A.J. Reach Company dated July 28, 1927 signed by seven of the people in attendance including the following:
A.J. Reach (D. 1928) was one of the game's early stars and is widely credited as being the first professional baseball player. After his retirement in 1875 he opened a sporting-goods store with Ben Shibe and quickly became one of the main suppliers of baseball equipment. In 1883 he began publication of Reach's Official Baseball Guide, which rivaled Spalding's guides in popularity. That same year he founded the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1895, after Baker Bowl burned to the ground, he rebuilt it primarily with steel and concrete construction, thereby ushering in the era of the modern stadium.
Thomas Shibe (D. 1936) is the son of Benjamin Shibe and Connie Mack, co-founders of the Philadelphia Athletics baseball team. He was also instrumental in helping to create the American League and helping Major League baseball divide the game into two leagues (AL and NL). He was known for his manufacture of baseballs and baseball equipment almost as much as his association with the A’s. He invented much of the machinery used to produce baseballs for the big leagues and his personal supervision of the AJ Reach plant. His family’s namesake adorned the Major League ballpark that the A’s and Phillies played in for many years (1909-70) in Philadelphia, Shibe Park. Connie Mack bought controlling interest in the Athletics upon Shibe’s death in 1936. His importance in Major League baseball can’t be underestimated.
Julian Wheeler Curtiss (1858 - 1944) was president of the Spalding sports equipment company and a pioneering promoter of golf in the United States. When he took a trip to London in 1892 to buy leather for making footballs in the U.S., he was introduced to golf. He brought home $400 worth of equipment and started the first manufacturer of golf equipment in the United States. In 1892 with his brother, Edwin Burr Curtiss, and others he started the Fairfield County Golf Club, today known as the Greenwich Country Club. Curtiss served as the club's first President, from 1892-96, and again from 1921-34.
Curtiss was affiliated with the Amateur Athletic Union and became treasurer of the American Olympic Committee. He was one of the figures, together with Walter Camp and others, responsible at the turn of the twentieth century with popularizing sports in the U.S. and making it a central part of American culture. He designed the first basketball in association with James Naismith, the inventor of the game. From 1902 to 1911 he served as graduate coach of the Yale crew team, turning out five championship outfits, and from 1918 to 1940, he refereed many of the foremost crew races in the East. Today, he is one of those forgotten figures in sports history, but the significance of his achievements can’t be underestimated. He’s a prime candidate for both the Basketball and Golf Hall of Fame.
George Reach (D. 1954) was the younger brother of A.J. Reach. He played professional baseball in the 1870’s, most notably for the Philadelphia Athletics.
J. WALTER SPALDING (D. 1931) the brother of Baseball HOFer, Albert Spalding
H. Boardman Spalding - VP, secretary, treasurer, and director at A.G. Spalding & Brothers Sporting Goods. Brother of world famous violinist, Albert Spalding and son of J. Walter Spalding (co-founder of Spalding).
All signed in black steel tipped pen with some exceedingly rare autographs.
FULL PSA/DNA LOA
Item: 13732
|