It looks like most any old baseball. The surface dirty. The horsehide scuffed here and there. The seams slightly worn and faded.
But it is no ordinary ball, for its travels are the stuff of legend.
Like all National League baseballs of its day, this ball began its journey at the Spalding factory in Chicopee, Massachusetts. There, factory workers made the ball much as they had been making them for decades, to exacting specifications and stitched by hand.
Next stop: Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, Saturday, May 25, 1935. Removed from its box and rubbed with mud to remove the sheen, the ball was ready to use in that day’s game between the visiting Boston Braves and the hometown Pittsburgh Pirates.
With one out in the top of the seventh and the home club on top, 7-5, the ball made its way into the hands of Pirates pitcher Guy Bush. A moundsman with loads of speed and a nifty curveball, Bush had won over 150 games in a dozen seasons with the Cubs before being traded to Pittsburgh the previous November. Now Bush faced a formidable opponent: Babe Ruth.