Crown June 2024 Auction

Charles O. Finley unopened box of 1 Dozen Orange Baseballs. In 1963 Kansas City Athletics owner Charlie Finley proposed the use of orange baseballs as beneficial for players and fans. Finley, an insurance magnate who’d bought the Athletics three years earlier from the estate of Arnold Johnson.On March 29, at the Athletics’ home field in Mesa, Finley’s baseball was used for the first time in front of a crowd that included Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. (Ironically, Finley himself wasn’t there for his idea’s debut. He was in Chicago, but listened to the game via long-distance telephone. Finley was able to persuade American League and Indians officials to use the balls in a spring-training game on March 29, 1973. Catfish Hunter took the hill against Indians ace Gaylord Perry, but anyone looking for a pitcher’s duel was almost instantly disappointed, as the offensive explosion Finley foretold did, in fact, come to pass, with 27 hits and 16 runs. Six home runs were hit, three by George Hendrick, who’d come to Cleveland just five days earlier with catcher Dave Duncan in a deal that sent Ray Fosse and Jack Heidemann to Oakland.