This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/4/2020
The 1916 Boston Red Sox won 91 games and dispatched of the Brooklyn Robins in 5 games to defend their title as World Series champions. Hall of Famer Harry Hooper commanded the offensive and the impressive pitching corps was led by a 21-year old hurler named Babe Ruth. Ruth posted a Christy Mathewson-type season on this hill, going 23-12 with a 1.75 ERA and nine shutouts. Extended his phenomenal run into the postseason, Ruth landed a World Series victory in Game 2 by giving up just one run while going the distance, which turned out to be 14 innings. Ruth sits in the center of the front row on this 1916 Red Sox team photo that commemorates their World Series championship, one of only a handful of examples known to exist from Babe Ruth's second full season in the majors. A similar image was taken just before or after this one that used for the back of the Boston Red Sox World Series program from that year. But in this case, it's an original 5" x 7" black and white photograph that is affixed to an 8" x 10" cardboard mount. "Red Sox" and "World Series 1916" flanks the photo with a roll call of players corresponding to the pictured roster. Hall of Famer Herb Pennock, who sits two spaces down from Ruth, would later join "The Sultan of Swat" as part of the famed "Murderer's Row" 1927 Yankees. Little did Pennock or any other of his Boston teammates know that the ace pitcher on their World Championship team would give up his career on the mound and go on to shatter virtually every offensive statistic in the record books to that point.
The condition of this piece is the finest we've ever seen with some light staining in the upper right corner of the photo, almost impossible to see without looking at an angle, but no tears or other abrasions to the snapshot and is still firmly affixed to the cardboard mount. A truly spectacular piece of the Babe getting his first taste of a championship title before heading to New York and building his legendary career with the Yankees.