What a Lemon!
Saw this recently. At first I thought it was a chestnut, or moldy piece of fruit. I was wrong.
Said D.B. of Lyons, New York, “I uncovered this while remodeling his home.” D.B. sent a photo to “Country Living” magazine and asked, “What is it?”
According to appraiser Simeon Lipman who spoke with Antiques Roadshow executive producer Marsh Bernko, it appears to be an early lemon peel-style baseball. “Used in the mid- to late-19th century, these baseballs are highly desirable to collectors looking to acquire a piece dating back to the beginning of our national pastime,” he said.
Four pieces of leather were sewn together giving the ball the appearance of a lemon, hence its nickname. They are also quite scarce because they were expensive for the time, and homemade versions were difficult to produce.
In some ways, they look more like rotten fruit than real baseballs. Can you imagine what one of them would look like after being demolished by Aaron Judge?
Not until the mid-1850s were attempts made to standardize baseballs. Up to then, they were primarily homemade. A. J. Spalding, one of the the greatest pitchers ever and who later became a sporting goods magnate, pitched every game with balls he made himself. He didn’t do badly either, winning 241 games out of 301 in just four years. But that was in the 1870s.
More recently, one of my teammates from the Tucson Old Timers, the late Chico Bigham, described how, growing up in North Carolina, his mother used to stitch baseballs together using old socks.
“And my dad made bats out of fallen tree branches. We hit so many balls against the side of the barn that we finally had to re-side it.”
But that’s another story. Back to “lemons.” As far as peel-style baseballs are concerned, a ball in near-perfect condition can swing $1,500. The one that D.B. of Lyons, New York discovered is estimated at $300 to $500.
