President Dwight D. Eisenhower Single Signed National League Baseball PSA DNA
$4,995.00
Presented is a 1962 Dwight D. Eisenhower signed baseball that was game used in a Los Angeles Angels spring training game. The story is that this Official National League Ball (Giles) sources from a man whose father met Eisenhower at an Angels spring training game that year in which the man's father caught this Leon Wagner home run ball and then had Eisenhower sign it. The Eisenhower signature, in ink from a ballpoint pen, rates a 4/10. In 1962, the Los Angeles Angels, as a Major League franchise, were in only their second season, and the team became the first expansion team to have a winning record in only its second season. The '62 Angels finished in 3rd place in the AL West Division with a record of 86-76. Leon Wagner played left field for the '62 Angels and he had a stellar season, batting .290, with 26 home runs and 104 RBIs. Former President Eisenhower had an acknowledged love of baseball. He recounted that as a boy in Kansas, he and a friend were sitting on a riverbank discussing what they wanted to be when they grew up. "I told him I wanted to be a real professional ballplayer, like Honus Wagner," said Eisenhower. "He told me that he wanted to be the President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish." Maybe so, maybe not. There are multiple stories that Eisenhower played minor league baseball in 1911 for the Junction City Soldiers of the Central Kansas League, as a centerfielder who hit .355 in 31 at bats as he played under the name "Wilson." Whatever the truth, it seems clear that at the very least that Eisenhower played semi-pro baseball. So, the Eisenhower signature on a baseball is especially meaningful as the former Allied Commander in World War II and former U.S. President was an avid baseball aficionado. The signed ball comes with a PSA LOA.
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