‘Golden Age of Baseball’ collection up for auction

NEW YORK — While the bidding goes on around the clock at MLB.com/auction for everything from Kris Bryant’s champagne-soaked clinch jersey worn last week to a Reggie Jackson Pebble Beach Golf Experience, a new baseball auction is coming soon, and it promises to be the largest and most significant of this generation.

“The Golden Age of Baseball” is a collection of 485 lots that will be on the block at Christie’s in New York on Oct. 19-20, and it also will be on display at other locations for fans to view for free. All of the items belonged to one individual, who indexed them at an online site called the National Pastime Museum. Topping the list is a bat used by Shoeless Joe Jackson in the 1917-20 timeframe, with estimated value between $500,000-$700,000.

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“I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and this particular collection is indeed one of the greatest collections of sports memorabilia I’ve ever seen,” said Simeon Lipman, Christie’s consultant for pop culture. “It’s the quality of the material, and it kind of encompasses the whole game. It starts in the 1860s, it goes to contemporary days, and within it has Negro League items, Cuban League items, Major League Baseball stuff. So you’re dealing with the whole story, and I think that’s the most unique aspect.”

Several of the items were brought to the MLB.com studios in Manhattan on Thursday morning for a glimpse not only into the sport’s past but of Americana as well. Here are five examples:

Last-out baseball from the 1909 World Series Tigers batter Tom Jones lined out to Pirates left fielder Fred Clarke, ending the first Game 7 in World Series history …

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