The Journey to Authenticate My Wooden Number is Over!

“Until another example, with some very solid provenance/history, surfaces that is made of wood to compare yours to I would think it a bit difficult for anyone to state with certainty that it was used in Forbes Field.”

Hunt Auctions – from email dated October 29, 2019

I stated at the end of my blog post on March 1^st that I had hit the pause button on my journey to try and authenticate the wood number 2 that was supposedly from Forbes Field that my son had given me as a gift for my birthday last October. 

With the arrival in late April of an issue of Sports Collector’s Digest I hit the play button again. In that issue was a Man Cave article that mentioned Stadia dealer Richie Aurigemma, who has an impressive inventory of seats, signs, railings, and other artifacts from past and current ballparks for sale.

I emailed Richie and received a reply back that he concurred with the other people that had weighed in so far that he had never seen a wooden scoreboard number from Forbes Field.

Things were looking bleak, but then on May 3^rd someone wrote a comment on my March 1^st blog that they had seen a wooden number 9 from Forbes Field and that it was in the Baseball Hall of Fame!

The person who commented also added that he thought the wooden numbers were used on the “Next Game Here” sign that was adjacent to the larger scoreboard during the 1969 and 1970 seasons. He also included a link to a photo the included the “Next Game Here” sign.

I emailed the Research Department of the Baseball Hall of Fame on May 4^th (HOF was closed at the time due to the pandemic) and they confirmed that they indeed did have a wooden scoreboard number 9 from Forbes Field and that it was still on display.

I also posted an inquiry on the Forbes Field Facebook page to see if anyone had information on the “Next Game Here” sign. Someone did reply that they have a wooden sign that reads JUNE on one side and AUG. on the other side, and also posted a photo that was probably taken in 1963 of the Scoreboard – see photo below. At the bottom of the scoreboard is a “Next Game Here” area. From the photo it looks like wooden numbers were used earlier than 1969 as well. I identified the players and coach from the Dodgers in the photo and have included their names.

The Baseball Hall of Fame has recently opened and a friend of mine took his family there over the 4^th of July weekend. He took photos of the wooden number 9 that they have on display in the Sacred Ground exhibit area and it does match up well with my number 2. He eyeballed the dimensions of the number on display and again these are consistent with my number.

It has been 9 months since I received my birthday present and I can now say with a very high degree of certainty that it is an authentic number from Forbes Field. I would not be able to make that statement without the help from a number who not only took the time to respond to a stranger on a baseball journey, but in many cases also did additional research to help me with my quest.

A shout out and thank you to all the following people and organizations for their help – Hunt Auctions, The Pittsburgh Pirates, Len Martin (the unofficial Forbes Field historian who has written books on Forbes Field and Fenway Park), Frank Thomas “The Original”, the co-chairs of the SABR Ballparks Research Committee, Richie Aurigemma, Matt (who commented on my blog), members of the Forbes Field Facebook page (who commented on my post), the Manager of Reference Services at the Baseball Hall of Fame and my friend who took the number 9 photos.