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The Bert Randolph Sugar Collection
11 Lots
 Lot 373. Scarce Autobiography of Baseball Pioneer and Hall of Fame Player Cap Anson (HoF). The Hall of Fame first baseman didn’t spare any words in creating a title for his book: “A Ball Player’s Career: Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscences of Adrian C. Anson, Late Manager and Captain of the Chicago Baseball Club.” First edition hardback, 1900, from Era Publishing. The book is complete. Water has slightly to moderately warped the pages throughout. Owners’ names are inside the front cover, on the flyleaf and on the first title page. Toward the front, a page with a photo of Anson is loose and chipped, warped and stained. Water damage is more pronounced in the first 20 pages than in the rest of the book. The covers are faded and stained, and the top of the spine shows a tear. The book won’t win any awards for beauty, but it is complete and fully readable. It offers significant insights on Anson’s view of baseball and life. In a 22-season career, he collected 3,012 hits, drove in 1,880 runs and batted .331. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1939.
Winning Bid $68.
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 Lot 374. Calvin Griffith Signed 1947 Typed Note on Washington Senators’ Stationery. Born Calvin Robertson, he was the nephew of Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith, who raised the boy from the age of 11. Griffith adopted Calvin after the boy’s father died. Calvin worked for the Senators organization, and when the elder Griffith died in 1955, Calvin inherited the team, which he moved to Minnesota in 1961. He sold the team in 1984. Griffith died in 1999. Born in Canada, he was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2010. His signature, as the Senators’ vice president, is mint 9 to gem mint 10 at the close of a letter on 8.5” x 4.75” stationery. In the letter, he tells a writer that Senators team jackets are not for sale. Authenticated by Kevin Keating.
Winning Bid $35.
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 Lot 375. Bert Sugar’s TSN “Baseball Register” Collection – 31 Issues from 1946-2003. Even with the increase in information on the Internet, the “Register” from “The Sporting News” remains a valuable resource, providing player minor and major league statistics in a single “file.” The earlier copies from Sugar’s shelves of reference materials are especially well used. Some still contain his post-it notes used to mark pages: 1946, g; 1950, Joe DiMaggio cover, p-f; 1951, vg; 1952, ex+; 1955, back cover loose, g+; 1956, vg-ex; 1957, p; 1959, g+; 1961, edges taped, vg; 1963, vg; 1964, vg-ex; 1966, Koufax cover, vg-ex; 1967, Frank and Brooks Robinson cover, vg+; 1968, vg+; 1969, ex+; 1971, Mays cover, vg+ to ex; 1972, Torre cover, ex-m; 1973, ex; 1974, Rose cover, vg-ex; 1975, Hunter, vg-ex; 1976, Palmer, ex-m; 1977, Joe Morgan, nm; 1978, Carew, vg+; 1979, vg-ex; 1980 Yastrzemski, 1981 Brett, 1982 Valenzuela and 1983 Sutter, all ex to ex-m; 1985vg+; 1986, Mattingly, vg+ to ex, and 2003, Bonds and others, vg. This group comes with a letter of authenticity, signed by Mrs. Sugar, saying it is from the Bert Sugar collection.
Winning Bid $20.
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 Lot 376. 20+ Baseball Guides and Other Annuals and Publications Spanning 1906-59. The earliest publication is “Napoleon Lajoie’s Official Base Ball Guide” from 1906. Lacking covers, it is otherwise complete and contains Van Oeyen and Horner photos. The premier publication in the group is “Who’s Who in Major League Baseball,” the wonderful 1933 hardcover edited by Harold (Speed) Johnson. The covers of this copy remain connected but are detached from the interior. At least 20 leafs (40 pages) have been cut, removing photos of Foxx, Gehrig, Gomez, Grove, Hubbell, Medwick, Ruth, Ruffing, Terry, Cobb, Mathewson, Marquard, Bresnahan, Bender, Plank, Baker, Waddell, Young, Alexander and others. Generally, information on these players remains, and photos and biographical sketches of more than 400 players are present. Here is a list of the other publications – “Baseball Bat Bag”: From “Baseball Magazine,” featuring “Forty Years of Odd Baseball Records,” 1925 g-vg and 1924 vg. “Batting Averages at a Glance”: From “The Sporting News” by Paul A. Rickart, 1962, vg+ to ex. “Famous Slugger Yearbook”: 1936, Lou Gehrig and Mel Ott cover, vg-ex, and 1947, Musial and Vernon, g-vg. “Heilbroner Baseball Blue Book”: 1946 Abridged Edition, vg. In 1909, Heilbroner established the first commercial statistical organization focusing on baseball. “Knotty Problems of Baseball”: By Billy Evans, American League Umpire, published by “The Sporting News,” 1950, f-g. “Major League Baseball (Whitman Publishing)”: 1941, Bob Feller cover, vg; 1942, Ted Williams cover, g+ to vg; 1945 and 1946, both poor; 1948, Williams, two copies, one vg+ and one f. “Official Baseball (A. S. Barnes)”: 1945, stained covers, otherwise vg, and 1946 vg. “Official Base Ball Rules Adopted by the National and American Leagues”: Revised for 1939 and written by John B. Foster, ex. “Official Baseball Rules, 1959 Edition”: Published by “The Sporting News,” vg-ex. “Sporting News Record Book”: 1936, Hank Greenberg cover, vg+, and 1940, g. “Who’s Who in Baseball”: 1980 reprint of the 1926 edition, Max Carey cover, nm And “Who’s Who in the Major Leagues” (Callahan-Carmichael): 1937, no cover, pages probably missing, p; 1948, hardcover, vg-ex; and 1952, hardcover, vg-ex.
Winning Bid $83.
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 Lot 377. Knute Rockne Book and 1931 Metal Relief Plaquette. The bust sculpture, 5” x 6.75”, is signed (facsimile) by known artist Morgan V. Hinchman and dated 1931. Nm-m. The book is a biography, “Goals: The Life of Knute Rockne” by H. W. Hurt, 1931 apparent first edition, vg-ex, no dust jacket. Lowell Thomas wrote the book’s introduction. The sculpture is very rare item produced after Rockne died in a plane crash in 1931. Closing in on one century after his death, he remains one of the most highly regarded coaches in football history.
Winning Bid $68.
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 Lot 378. “TSN” 1972-81 “Football Registers,” 1973-75 “National Football Guides” and More. Cover subjects of the “Registers” include Terry Bradshaw, Fran Tarkenton, Bert Jones and Walter Payton. Their condition ranges from vg-ex to nm and averages ex+. Each volume contains the career statistics of players active in the previous season. The “National Football Guides” have covers with Mercury Morris, Larry Csonka and Franco Harris. Vg-ex (1974) to nm (1973). The guides have summaries of each game played during the preceding season and extensive statistics. Also, “Sporting News Super Bowl Books” for 1981 and 1985. Vg-ex. These softcovers summarize each Super Bowl, list everyone who ever played in the game and provide a summary of the NFL Championship games beginning in 1933. Fifteen publications.
Minimum Bid $10.
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 Lot 379. 16 National Football League Media Information Books, 1970-83 and 1985. From the estate of Bert Randolph Sugar, these annuals provide a week-by-week summary of NFL games, key statistics for each team in the preceding season and rosters for the current season. Each Information Book is spiral-bound. For 1970-73, the NFL issued separate books for AFC and NFC teams. Beginning in 1974, they are combined into a single book. This collection has AFC Information Books for 1970-73, NFC books for 1971-73 and combined books for 1974-76 and 1979-83. The combination books contain at least 160 pages. The 1970-73 books each have at least 90 pages. These annuals average vg-ex. (Pages are ex-m to nm, some with notations by Sugar). These scarce NFL annuals come with a letter of authenticity, signed by Mrs. Sugar, saying they are from the Bert Sugar collection.
Winning Bid $25.
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 Lot 380. Billy Conn Book – “The Boxer and the Banker” by J. Knox McConnell. This self-published 1984 hardcover tells the story of Conn and his influence on McConnell as a youngster. McConnell was eight when he met Conn at one of his first professional fights. As an adult, McConnell served as president of two large banks. The book is ex, and the dust jacket, vg+ with a scuff at the top of the front. McConnell signed the flyleaf with his middle name, “Knox.” The signature is mint 9 and personalized. Conn died in 1993, and McConnell in 1997.
Winning Bid $7.
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 Lot 381. 4 Boxing Books – 3 on Jack Johnson and 1 on Muhammad Ali. Written by Jack Olsen, the Ali book is “Black Is Best: The Riddle of Cassius Clay,” 1967 apparent first edition, vg-ex, dust jacket absent. A senior editor at “Sports Illustrated,” Olsen attempts to put into perspective competing and even contradictory images of the heavyweight champion. It contains eight pages of photographs. Among the books on Johnson is his autobiography, “My Life & Battles.” The 2007 first edition hardback is a translation of a memoir by Johnson that was published in French, first as a series of articles in 1911 and then as a book in 1914. Christopher Rivers, who translated the French manuscripts, autographed the first title page and personalized the signature to Bert Sugar. The signature is mint 9. The first edition hardback is nm in a vg-ex dust jacket. The other books are softcovers: “Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes,” Randy Roberts, uncorrected proof, vg with some underlining, edits and corrections, and “Jack Johnson,” Sal Fradella, 1990 first edition, inscribed by the author to Sugar as “Boxing’s ‘Renaissance Man’.” Mint 9 signature. Part of a “They Didn’t Know It Could Be Done” series, the ex-m 116-page book devotes more space to photos than to text.
Winning Bid $20.
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 Lot 382. George L. Mikan Signed 8” x 10.75” Magazine Photo. As one of basketball’s first big men, Mikan helped to revolutionize the game. He played on seven championship teams in the National Basketball League, Basketball Association of America and the NBA. He was a league leader in scoring three times. Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1959, he was selected as one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players toward the end of the 20th century. He died in 2005. His autograph is nm 7 on a photo that has been folded several times.
Winning Bid $20.
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