GUEST: My 13th birthday, my great-uncle gave me this birthday present of a baseball signed by Babe Ruth.
APPRAISER: 1961, you got it for your 13th birthday.
GUEST: Right. 1961, and, uh, he gave it to me when he learned that my baseball team was going on a road trip up to, uh, Kansas City...
APPRAISER: Mm.
GUEST: ...to watch the Yankees play the Kansas City Athletics. That inspired him to give it to me, and, uh, I took it along with me. We got there and saw the game on August 27...
APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.
GUEST: ...on a Sunday. And Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris did, neither one hit home runs that day that we saw in our game, but Yogi Berra did hit one home run.
APPRAISER: Right.
GUEST: And Elston Howard hit two. Toward the end of the game, my coach of the team, our team, took the ball and, uh, disappeared and came back a little bit later at the end of the game. He had, uh, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle had signed the ball.
APPRAISER: Wow.
GUEST: (murmurs)
APPRAISER: So, here's the ticket you have to the game.
GUEST: Right, the ticket stub.
APPRAISER: And here, and here's the baseball itself. Well, we've got Ruth, '31, right here. And here's Mantle, and it shows Mickey Mantle, 1961, on there. And then we flip it around and there is Roger Maris. And did you know what was going on that summer?
GUEST: Oh, yes. It was in all the news. Uh, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in their home run duel to break Babe Ruth's record.
APPRAISER: That's right, and that's what I love about this baseball-- here you have, and we'll flip it back here, Babe Ruth, who, of course, broke his own home run record in 1927, setting at 60 home runs in a single season. Broke his home run record of 1921, when he hit 59 home runs, and you fast-forward to 1961, and you have the M&M boys. In all my years in, in sports-- and I've been a sports fan all my life and I've been looking at baseballs for many, many years-- I've never seen a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris, let alone a ball signed by Ruth in the heyday of his career, 1931, and Mantle and Maris during the summer that they assaulted Ruth's home run record. Maris ended up hitting 61 in 161 games. Mantle, of course, went down with an injury late in the season and I believe only finished with 52 or 54. That's what gives it value. You've got these two eras of Yankee dominance and these two eras of the home run being set by Ruth and then the home run record being broken by Maris in '61. At auction, I'd put it up at about $30,000 to $50,000.
GUEST: That much?
APPRAISER: $30,000 to $50,000, yes.
GUEST: I didn't an, anticipate that.
APPRAISER: And I would put an insurance value on it for at least $50,000. You have two great eras here. You have two great stories here that have collided right in this baseball. Who knew what you were going to get for your 13th birthday?
GUEST: I did, I didn't ever dreamed of this.
