This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/8/2018
Throughout his career as a big league manager, Ossie Vitt had a problem dealing with veterans. His gruff and heavy-handed manners rubbed older players the wrong way (see "Cleveland Crybabies" for reference). Oddly enough, this same approach proved successful when he coached in the minors and below.
This custom tie clip was awarded to Vitt for his part in the Hearst National Baseball Championships, named after famed newspaper mogul (and unofficial subject of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane) William Randolph Hearst. Also called the Hearst Sandlot Championship, this tournament gathered the best teenage baseball talent in the country, and Vitt’s team, co-managed with Hall of Famers Honus Wagner and Ray Schalk and sponsored by the San Francisco Examiner Newspaper, won the championship. The tie bar, made by Dieges & Clust, has a round medallion suspended by a gold chain and is hallmarked "1/20 10KT." The medallion features a batter in profile with “HEARST NATIONAL BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP” in gold around the edge. The bar shows some wear with slight tarnishing of the surface and some abrasions to the blue enamel.
The tie bar is accompanied by two photographs depicting Ossie Vitt’s work with young ballplayers during the late 1940’s along with one admission ticket to an Examiner Boys Baseball League game and a blank membership card for the Examiner Baseball School bearing Oscar Vitt's printed signature.
Includes LOA from Vitt's grandson.