THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410070244
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS
STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
TRIS SPEAKER, an outfielder for the Boston Red Sox in the early days of this century, was good enough to make the baseball Hall of Fame.
Now members of the Outer Banks History Center Associates hope he's good enough to make the center some money.
A 1911 collector's card that shows Speaker gazing boyishly from a diamond frame, and an old baseball signed by 13 players of the mid-1930s St. Louis Cardinals, are up for bid to raise funds for the history center.
The center's staff came across the card by chance when cataloguer Sarah Downing found it between the pages of Willard's ``History of the United States,'' an 1828 book donated by center benefactor David Stick.
``We always find odd bits of material in books,'' Downing said. ``It was pretty exciting to find something that might be worth something.''
``At first I felt very close to it,'' she said. ``The things that come out of a book, somebody put it there, and it's kind of a link to the past.''
Because the card, which was originally distributed in 1911 packs of Hassan cigarettes, was not listed among the items Stick had donated to the state, ownership of the card reverted to Stick.
``I saw the card briefly,'' Stick said, but decided he didn't want it. ``With all the interest now in baseball cards, it seemed to me that it would be better for me to give it to the history center.''
Center associates, who hoped to sell the card and turn the proceeds over to the Frank Stick Memorial Fund, began investigating the card's value.
They were disappointed to find that because of a fold in the upper-right corner, it would only net around $60.
But center officials say the card is in great shape.
A quarterly newsletter published this month says that because the item was preserved in an acid-free book, ``one of the safest places imaginable . . . it is in better condition than most cards its age.''
Stick said he was ``very impressed'' with the card but had ``no idea'' about its value.
``It's always irritated me that the prices of items of that kind are determined simply by the promotion, usually,'' Stick said.
Since the Tris Speaker card is not well known in collectors' circles, Stick said half-seriously it might not even pull in as much as ``a 10-year-old rookie card of some joker who never hit more than .142.''
To ``sweeten the pot'' in the center's quest to raise more than $500 from the item, an anonymous donor added an autographed baseball.
The famous crew whose signatures cover the ball do not include the entire Gashouse Gang, the newsletter said.
But such immortal players as Dizzy and Daffy Dean, Leo Durocher, Pepper Martin, Joe ``Ducky'' Medwick and Bob O'Farrell touched pen to the leather.
The ball was probably signed in 1935, when St. Louis, the defending world champion, finished second in the National League.
Two other names are more curious, the newsletter says.
One is Hall-of-Famer Clarence ``Dazzy'' Vance, who spent most of his career with the Brooklyn Dodgers but pitched in one World Series game for the Cardinals in 1934.
The other, Tom Carey, was probably the second baseman for the American League St. Louis Browns from 1935-1937, the newsletter says.
Downing said the group will probably try to advertise the items' sale through local sporting stores to get the word out among fans and collectors. MEMO: The associates will take bids in writing mailed by Dec. 31. to the Outer
Banks History Center Associates, P.O. Box 250 in Manteo, 27954.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by DREW C. WILSON
Sarah Downing holds a 1911 Tris Speaker baseball card that was found
in a book donated to the Outer Banks History Center.
by CNB