Halper Auctioeer Claims no Knowledge of Stolen Will

A new article in today's Herald puts the question of the whereabouts of Tommy McCarthy's will-the rarest autograph in baseball-to former Yankees owner Halper's auctioneer, Rob Lifson.

Auctioneer: Way of the will unknown

An auctioneer who worked with a deceased New York Yankees owner who
had stolen Boston baseball treasures in his collection says he doesn’t know what
happened to the missing will of 19th century Hub ballplayer Tommy
McCarthy.

Rob Lifson, a consultant who helped Sotheby’s auction house sell
millions in memorabilia for Yankees owner Barry Halper in 1999, also said he was
unaware that a rare contract sold in that auction was part of a baseball
scrapbook swiped from the New York Public Library.

Yankee Thieves Steal Boston Treasures

According to today's Boston Herald former Yankee owner Barry Halper was repsonsible for plundering some of Boston's greatest baseball treasures.

Dead Bronx Bomber minority owner Barry Halper sold Boston Red Caps’ player E.B.
Sutton’s 1879 contract, which paid the player a whopping $30 for a season, in a
1999 auction. An unknowing California collector paid $4,000 for the document,
but according to a newly discovered 1953 letter obtained by the Herald, it was
part of a baseball scrapbook swiped from the New York Public Library.

Read the rest of the lurid story here: Herald.

All That Glitters is Gold.

It’s time for Thom’s This Week in Baseball.

They’ll be serving knuckle sandwiches in St. Louis on July 14. Yeah! You see, that’s when the All-Star game is and Wakefield is, ahm-let’s start over:

American League wins leader (11) Tim Wakefield will be playing in the first All-Star game of his career on July 14. Yeah. Roll the video. Timmy won his 11th game of the year Wednesday night against the visiting A’s who brought along an old friend.

Nomar visited the old grounds that made him famous. The man who revived the Red Sox, who allowed us to win every debate, whose number was hung from the rafters every night when he took it off came in as DH for the A’s struggling through another injury plagued season and received a prolonged standing ovation at the plate. He made it clear that he wanted to return to the Sox again before retiring, but didn’t understand that he just had.

The Yankee Way!

Did you think Yankee villainy began with Alex Rodriguez-Ciccone? Boy were you naïve. Aside from abusing tax-payers and soccer players it turns out that they’re grave robbers too. The Boston Herald reported today that former Yankee owner Barry Halper stole the wills of some of Boston’s early greats. In addition, he had possession of items stolen from the Boston Public Library. Are you really surprised?

Shout it out loud, We Love The YANKEES

We're really proud of our YANKEES

And we're gonna win today

More Thom’s Foolery

Well, in retrospect I’m glad we got Stephon because we all had to learn to accept a player we swore we would never like. This year we’ll put that tolerance to the test when number 30 Rasheed Wallace steps on the floor. If nothing else the Celts will lead the league in technical fouls. To be fair, he’s coming off the bench and if coached right could become an important, ah, shit-I really don’t like him.

For Timmy:

Hey now you're an All Star get your game on, go play

Hey now you're a Rock Star get the show on, get paid.

(And all that glitters is gold)

Only shooting stars break the mold

David Hunt Removes Questionable Harry Wright Letters From MLB Sale

The New York Times' Jack Curry wrote a new piece on the stolen Wright letters. It would seem that David Hunt changed his mind about the provenance of the letters. He went from complete denial to complete cooperation in a few days. I wonder what motivated him.

It wouldn't be a shock if more major papers picked up this story soon.

Follow the discussion further here.

Auction House Removes 19th-Century Letters From Sale

By JACK CURRY
Published: July 7, 2009

Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still investigating whether some 19th-century baseball letters that were supposed to be sold at next week’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game auction were stolen from the New York Public Library, the auction house has removed the items from the sale...
Read on

Wright Letters Removed From MLB Auction

According to an AP story linked below, David Hunt Auctions decided to-day to remove 20 some-odd suspicious letters from the MLB All-Star Fanfest auction out of fear they were stolen from the New York Public Library's Harry Wright Collection. The letters document some of the earliest minutes of professional baseball.


NEW YORK (AP) -- A trove of letters to one of baseball's founding fathers has been removed from an upcoming auction while the FBI investigates whether they were among items stolen from the New York Public Library years ago. Read more...

More Evidence Surfaces in Theft of Wright Letters

Jack Curry of the NY Times reported today that a baseball historian named Dorothy Seymour Mills had come forward to confirm that at least one of the letters for sale in David Hunt's Auction at MLB All-Star Fanfest had been in the NY Public Library as recently as 1956 when she used it for research on her late husband Harold Seymour's dissertation, "The Rise of Major League Baseball to 1891".

This revelation cast even greater doubt on the provenance of the letters said by Hunt to be the consignor's "grandmother's attic"-a term that's almost a cliche' for shady origins.

See the original story here: "Baseball Pioneer’s Letters Pulled From Auction" or below.