This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/11/2018
Though American baseball teams had visited Japan several times in the years before World War II, the 1934 Tour of Japan featuring Babe Ruth was the biggest and most talented group to ever appear on the island. Joining the Babe was Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Jimmie Foxx, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, Lefty O’Doul and a dozen other of the best Big Leaguers America had to offer, led by legendary manager Connie Mack. The Americans played 18 games against Japanese college nines as well as a National Team assembled just for the tour. Ruth and company won every game, but came perilously close to losing one when teenage sensation Eiji Sawamura struck out Gehringer, Ruth, Gehrig, and Foxx in succession. The excitement generated by the tour inspired the Japanese to form their own professional league that exists today.
This rarely seen newspaper broadside measures a large 22" by 31” and depicts every ember of the visiting American team. Ruth image is of course the largest, with Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez and Jimmie Foxx close behind in importance. Crouched in a catcher’s pose below Lou Gehrig is little-used backstop Moe Berg, who famously used his time in Japan to take notes and photograph buildings and installations that would be critical for U.S. military tactics. Not many pieces from this monumental tour survived the war and this is a particularly attractive and rare poster that depicts the American team in all its glory. Professionally matted and framed to dimensions of "32 by 42".