This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/6/2015
Following the 1931 Major League Baseball season, a team of MLB All-Stars organized by Herb Hunter and Fred Lieb traveled to Japan for a 17-game goodwill tour. The ‘31 tour followed in the footsteps of earlier Tours of Japan in the 1920s. The Americans played 17 games against top collegiate teams and amateur all-star squads, winning every contest. The Japanese were over-matched as they scored just 30 runs versus the MLB stars who pounded out 149. The consensus was that the Japanese were slick fielders and had some good pitchers but were poor hitters. One of the American players making the trip that year was none other than New York Yankees slugging first baseman Lou Gehrig.
Presented here is a Japanese kimono – the traditional robe of Japan – that Gehrig was presented at some point during his three-week stay at The Imperial Hotel, considered one of the crowning achievements in architect Frank Lloyd Wright's historic career. Built at the behest of the Imperial family, it was actually designed and constructed by the American architect, and was one of the only structures still standing after the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923. Subsequently it gained international recognition, and it is no wonder that when a tour of American baseball players set foot in Tokyo, the Imperial Hotel is where they chose to stay. The magnificent grey-sage robe, composed of the finest silk, is adorned with white-and-red painted cherry blossoms that climb down to the hem and along the sleeves. The traditional men’s kimono is lined with heavy red and white silks. Truly a memorable token of the Japanese hospitality that was extended to Gehrig and the other American ballplayers when they visited the Land of the Rising Sun.