First off, I believe that everyone is telling the truth, to their knowledge. In other words, someone may have bad information, but, they are not lying in order to fool anyone.
An older woman that my friend has made acquaintances with has a baseball that her father gave her when she was a child. She is now approximately 84 years old. According to her, her father (first name unknown to myself or my friend), a Mr. Stoneberger, was a running buddy of Babe Ruth. He gave her a ball that was the last homerun ball that the Babe ever hit.
Obviously, if true, it could be a very valuable ball. The problem is proof. So I ask, the wonderful Teeming Masses, prove that it isn’t. Easiest proof, an existing ball in Cooperstown. I have a few more details that I will release if there is not a known existinbg ball #714.
I will not be able to post again until tomorrow, so here are the other facts.
She knew Babe Ruth.
She does not know what team he was playing for when she got the ball.
The ball had been stored in her basement, but is in good condition.
I will not say where she now lives, in order to protect het privacy.
Babe Ruth hit home run #714 in Pittsburgh on 5/25/1935. It supposedly cleared the right field grandstand roof at Forbes Field.
Babe Ruth signed a whole bunch of stuff. Finding a baseball with his signature on it is not hard. Proving that you have homerun #714 at this date is pretty darn near impossible.
If you have a National League baseball with Ford Frick’s signature on it, then you might have the right ball.
Ruth hit homer #714 in Pittsburgh off of Guy Bush.
According to Babe by Robert Creamer: “It was unbelievably long, completely over the roof of the double-decked stands in right fied and out of the park. Nobody had ever hit a ball ovet the roof in Forbes Field before. Gus Miller, the head usher, went to investigate and was told the ball landed on the roof of one house, bounced onto another and then into a lot, where a boy picked it up and ran off with it.”
No name is given for the boy.
Proving the provenance of any baseball relic of that era would be damn hard.
And, in addition to all of the correct info that has been given by previous posters…
How, praytell, did Mr. Stoneberger acquire the ball. If he was so close to the babe, then he certainly wasn’t out chasing the ball outside of the stadium.