The Ball Hit 'Round The World

(From The Hartford Courant -- By Mark Spencer)

BILL MOORE was playing stickball with his friends on the concrete softball diamond at PS 91 in QUEENS when he saw his dad approaching.

That, in itself, was strange. When Moore, then 11, was AWOL on the streets of his GLENDALE neighborhood, his older sister was usually dispatched to shepherd him back to the family's two-bedroom apartment.

But on this October day in 1951, there was his dad, HAROLD, crossing the playground, a baseball cradled in his hand.

Two days before, at 3:57 pm on October 3rd at THE POLO GROUNDS, BOBBY THOMSON, facing RALPH BRANCA, earned a place in baseball history by smacking a bottom-of-the-ninth, three-run home run over the left field wall to clinch THE NATIONAL LEAGUE PENNANT for the NEW YORK GIANTS over THE BROOKLYN DODGERS.

The hit became known as THE SHOT HEARD 'ROUND THE WORLD and, as the lust for all things iconic grew decades later, the never-recovered home run ball became known as THE BALL, THE HOLY GRAIL OF SPORTS MEMORABILIA, THE BIG KAHUNA OF COLLECTIBLES.

This week, 54 years after his dad plunked the ball into his hand and said it was the one Thomson hit into the lower deck, Moore logs on at least once a day to www.lelands.com, the website for a LONG ISLAND auction house. He wants to see what bidders think it's worth.

According to Moore, his father said it was a gift from a co-worker at THE TRAVELERS who said he had caught it at the game. The man had no children, but knew his co-worker's son was a baseball fan, his father told him.

Moore has kept the ball for more than 50 years, told his story to anyone remotely interested, and every once in a while sought ways to silence the doubters he encountered.

Moore's father's co-worker had no idea at the time that he might have proffered a gift of $1 million to a kid who now doesn't even remember his name.

One million, that is, if it's actually THE BALL.

The Ball Hit 'Round The World