I loved to put together baseballs that had a theme. As an example, before I sold my collection, I had a baseball with men that played the game whose names had a color in them. Thus, the “color” ball was signed by Dick GREEN, Vida BLUE, Joe BLACK, RED Schoendienst and others…you get the picture.
Many of my theme balls had to do with an historic play that had occurred. I would have every player involved in that play, write in blue ink, on one of the panels of a blank, official major league baseball, what their role was in that play.
For Instance, on “The Shot Heard ‘Round The World Ball,” I had Bobby Thomson write on the side of the ball how he experienced hitting the famous home run that shockingly won the pennant in 1951. Ralph Branca, the pitcher who surrendered the homer to Thomson, wrote his recollection of the play on another panel of the ball. There are five other players involved in that play on the ball as well. Because many of the players who participated in my theme baseballs are now deceased , these baseballs could never be duplicated.
One of the favorites in my theme collection is The Mickey Ball. I always thought the quintessential baseball name was “Mickey.” To commemorate that, I got Mickey Mantle (the ultimate “Mickey”) to sign this ball along with 15 other men named Mickey that also played Major League Baseball. Thus, “The Mickey Ball.”