Flipping through Mastro’s April 2005 Sports Auction catalog, this photograph of Babe Ruth surrounded by a small mountain of baseball bats and balls caught my eye.
The original 8-by-10 Culver Archives photo shows a “nattily” dressed Ruth surrounded by equipment destined for 28 Citizens’ Military Training Camps around the country. The bats are even separated and labeled by destination: Camp Knox, Camp Custer, Camp Meade, Fort Bragg, Fort Scott, Camp Del Monte, and others.
The same photograph survives in the Bettmann Collection at Getty Images, where it’s dated July 12, 1924. Its original caption explains that Ruth autographed one bat and one ball for each of the 28 camps, where they would be awarded to the best batter. The whole thing was done at the personal request of General John J. Pershing, and apparently it went over pretty well: letters of appreciation were already coming back from camp commanders.
Mastro titled its copy “Babe Ruth Signs for the Troops” and noted a penciled September 20, 1924 date on the reverse. That later date may have been an archival or publication notation rather than the date the photograph was taken, given Getty’s July 12 dating.
And this wasn’t a one-time photo op. By May 1929, Ruth’s autographing had become an annual job. A Library of Congress photograph shows him signing hundreds more bats and balls at Washington’s ballpark, with Secretary of War James W. Good watching. The tradition was still going in the 1930s.
Happy collecting!
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