Synopses & Reviews
For a baseball fan, what could be better than getting an autograph from your favorite player or finding his baseball card? Now young people can celebrate their passion for our national pastime with some of the sport's most devoted collectors and the game-used bats and jerseys, autographed balls, and trophies from some of the most famous players, teams, and moments in baseball history.
More than 100 photos showcase baseball treasures most people have never seen before:
- Jerseys worn by legends such as Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, and Jackie Robinson
- The T206 Honus Wagner baseball card (the most expensive card in history)
- Bats used by the immortal Babe Ruth and Shoeless Joe Jackson
With baseball historian and enthusiast Stephen Wong as your guide, here's an introduction to some of the finest private baseball collections in the world and tips for how to start your own collection of baseball memorabilia.
About the Author
Stephen Wong, a lifelong collector of rare and historically significant artifacts, spent two and a half years researching his top-selling adult book
smithsonian baseball: Inside the World's Finest Private Collections. Wong has advised a number of the world's top collectors and is currently lending his expertise to an upcoming exhibition at the Chicago Historical Society celebrating the glory days of Chicago Cubs and White Sox baseball in the early twentieth century. He is also an advisory director for the Museum of the City of New York's summer 2007 exhibit "The Glory Days: New York Baseball, 1947-1957" and an honorary committee member for the city of Pittsfield and the Berkshire Museum's "1791—Art of the Game—Pittsfield," a two-year celebration of Pittsfield's unique place in baseball history. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Wong is currently an executive director at Goldman Sachs. He was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and now lives in Hong Kong.
Photographer Susan Einstein specializes in the photography of museum art and artifacts and has done work for the J. Paul Getty Museum and the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. She has an MA in art history and teaches college photography courses in Los Angeles.