The book, almost 80 years old, is worn around the edges. It has a green felt cover that now looks and feels like the playing surface on an old pool table, the nap rubbed to the nub. A stylized drawing of a quill overlaps the faded title. Autographs, the title says.
Inside, each page is a different colour. There is pink and green, lemon and cream. Many of the pages remain blank, just as they were when 11-year-old Jim Mitchell was given the book by his uncle Bill in 1932.
Jim lived in North Portal, a village bordering Saskatchewan and North Dakota. This was back in the day when pro sports teams passed through town on train. If an enterprising kid camped out at the CPR Station or in the lobby of the Grand Hotel in North Portal, there is no telling who he might see.
An entry in Jim’s book has him at the station on Oct. 16, 1934, a Tuesday.
The date is recorded in the upper right corner of a page. Across the middle of the page, a name is written large:
Sincerely
Babe Ruth
Jim’s old autograph book is still in the family, stored in a safe-deposit box in Saskatoon, and although his four sons never got to hear the full story of how he met Ruth - Jim died of a heart attack in 1959 at age 38, before the Mitchell boys were old enough to appreciate their father’s brush with baseball history - through the years Craig and Ian and Allan and Robin Mitchell have managed to fill in the blanks.
They know that after the 1934 World Series, a team of 14 American League all- stars was assembled for an exhibition tour of Japan.
As the all-stars took the train to the West Coast, they barnstormed across the prairies, playing games in Winnipeg and North Dakota and Calgary and Edmonton. (In Vancouver, legend has it Lou Gehrig played first base in galoshes and while holding an umbrella.)
Along the way the ball team hit North Portal.
Little Jim Mitchell met big Babe Ruth, who was 39 and coming off his final season with the New York Yankees.
Jim met other members of the American League all-stars that day at the CPR depot, too.
He met pitcher Joe Cascarella and umpire John Quinn.
He talked with Connie Mack, whose career as manager of the Philadelphia Athletics spanned 50 seasons.
Charlie Gehringer was one of the best second basemen in Major League Baseball history. His Detroit Tigers had just finished the World Series, losing in seven games to the Gashouse Gang from the St. Louis Cardinals. Gehringer joined the others in signing Jim’s book.
From what the Mitchell sons gather, their dad collected autographs for only two years, but he did a swell job of it. The names in his book were not just stars of that era, but of all time.
One of the pages in his book features 15 signatures from the 1931-32 Stanley Cup champion Toronto Maple Leafs. There’s Harvey (Busher) Jackson and King Clancy, Ace Bailey and Hap Day, Red Horner and Joe Primeau. That is a Hockey Hall of Fame six-pack right there.
There is more.
Remember Charlie Conacher? He played on the Kid Line on the Maple Leafs with Jackson and Primeau. He led the NHL in goals five times.
Chas Conacher, reads the autograph in Jim’s book.
“It’s just a fascinating piece of history,” said Robin Mitchell, the youngest of Jim’s four sons.
A former history teacher, Robin is the principal at a Saskatoon high school. He has had the autograph book in his safekeeping since he was 15, going back to when he and his brothers lived with their mother, Mary.
A few years ago, Robin contacted a sports memorabilia dealer in San Diego to get a ballpark figure on what the old autograph book is worth.
“He said about $2,000,” said Robin, who added a couple of Hall of Fame signatures to the book when speaking engagements brought goalies Gerry Cheevers and Ken Dryden to Saskatoon.
Robin also went on eBay.
“I’m not a big eBay guy,” he said. “I was just looking. Someone had listed a program (from the 1934 American League All-Star series) in Japan with autographs of all the players. Holy smokes. This guy was asking $1.4 million.
“I recognize the value of what we’ve got. That’s why it’s in a safe-deposit box. If we did sell, we’d have to have a summit meeting of the four of us first. And, sure, if this was something I’d just found in a store somewhere, I’m selling it yesterday.
“Without being too melodramatic this is about more than the names in that book. This is my connection with Dad.
“It’s priceless.”
The 1934 American League all-stars went 17-0 in their exhibition series in Japan. Ruth hit 13 homers. According to the New York Times, he and the team rode from the Tokyo train station to their hotel in open convertibles, Japanese fans lined the route, waving American flags.
“I love Bay-bee,” they shouted. “I love Bay-bee.”
Ruth’s wife, Claire, and his 18-year-old daughter, Julia, accompanied him on the tour. Which is curious, because in Jim’s autograph book, under Babe Ruth’s signature, there is a second name. His companion in North Porta signed her name Judy Ruth.
“Who is Judy Ruth?” Robin Mitchell said. “That’s a mystery. We haven’t figured that one out.”
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