How a historic baseball signed by Babe Ruth ended up at UCalgary

The University of Calgary’s Archives hit a home run when they got their hands on a genuine piece of baseball history. And, in honour of this week’s World Series, the artifact is available for viewing by fans of America’s pastime.

Back in 1934, Babe Ruth, one of the most legendary of American baseball players, along with Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Earl Averill and many other “heroes of the baseball diamond,” only days after visiting Calgary, embarked on a 14-day journey to Yokohama aboard the Empress of Japan for a special tour of the baseball-loving country. 

One of the ship’s officers, Gerald Ormsby Baugh, took advantage of his unique circumstances and had members of the team sign a ball for him. 

In 2015, a dealer donated Baugh’s service medals and scrapbooks to UCalgary’s Military Museums Library and Archives. Earlier this month — 81 years after the team came through Calgary — the Library was able to acquire Baugh’s signed ball as well.

Jason Nisenson, a military and literary archivist, now head of UCalgary Library’s Galleries, Archives and Special Collections, facilitated the acquisition.

He told the Calgary Herald that, while The Bambino’s distinctive autograph was easy to identify, others require more work.

“This ball is being researched as we speak,” Nisenson said. “There looks to be about 15 or 16 signatures on the ball.” 

Digitizing technology will be used to decipher most of the signatures. Nisenson told the Herald he is pretty confident the entire all-star team signed the ball, though he noted the presence of Gehrig’s autograph has yet to be confirmed, as is that of catcher-turned-American spy Moe Berg.

“We have a really rich set of material that relates to the history of Alberta, Canada and beyond. You never know what you’re going to find,” Nisenson says of the discovery, in a UToday interview.

So, how did the University of Calgary come to own a ball signed by baseball’s first great hitter and pitcher? The long road to our archives started in 1929.

Two Japanese men working in that country’s newspaper industry, Shigenori Ikeda and Matsutaro Shoriki, came up with an idea to bring Babe Ruth to Japan. There’d been a history of American professional baseball teams travelling to Japan going back to 1908, and Ikeda and Shoriki were convinced bringing the Sultan of Swat to Japan would be a profitable feat.

In 1934, that idea became reality. An American All-Star team climbed aboard a CPR train bound for Vancouver. En route, the “galaxy of famous baseball stars” stopped in Calgary on Oct. 16. And then it was on to the Empress of Japan.

Baugh was a Vancouver-based ship’s officer working on ocean liners between the two world wars. Baugh died without children, and his housekeeper inherited his naval scrapbooks, medals and the baseball he’d had signed in 1934. Many years later, the housekeeper’s son sold some of Baugh’s artifacts to an art dealer in the Victoria area. 

And it was that dealer who brought Baugh’s collection to UCalgary.

UCalgary’s collection of archival materials is among the largest at a major Canadian university. The materials include the historical documents of organizations like the Canadian Pacific Railroad and Imperial Oil, the papers of celebrated authors like W.O. Mitchell, Mordecai Richler and Robert Kroetsch, and the archives of EMI Music Canada. 

It also includes rare items such as a page from the Gutenberg Bible (recently featured in The Diplomat on Netflix), letters from Louis Riel — and now a baseball signed by Babe Ruth.

“The thing that needs to be said about archival collections generally is that, yes, these are locations with deep research potential, but they are also places of wonder, places where a young researcher in particular might find an object that excites their curiosity and propels them onwards into inquiry and scholarship,” says Nisenson.

 — With files from Alex Frazer-Harrison, External Relations