What you see: The Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum lifetime passes that belonged to Willie Stargell. SCP Auctions estimates the group, which includes a personalized leather carrying case, at $3,000 to $5,000.
Who was Willie Stargell? Wilver Dornell “Willie” Stargell was a legendary left fielder and first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He appeared on two World Series-winning Pirates teams, in 1971 and 1979. He holds the distinction of being the only baseball player to win the Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, the League Championship Series MVP award, and the World Series MVP award in the same year, and he did it at the age of 39. He was 25 home runs shy of the magical threshold of 500 when he retired from baseball in 1982. He died in 2001, at 61, two days before the Pirates unveiled a statue of him at PNC Park.
When did Stargell receive these bronze MLB lifetime passes? It’s not clear, but he might have received the MLB lifetime pass on or around his retirement, and he probably earned the Cooperstown pass in 1988, after he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.
Are those passes made of gold? Nope, they’re bronze. “They’re solid metal, but both are about as thick as a credit card,” says Dan Imler, vice president of SCP Auctions.
Did Stargell have the personalized leather case made to hold them both? “The case was issued with the Hall of Fame pass,” says Imler. “It does accommodate two passes. He obviously got them separately. They happen to fit perfectly in this particular case.”
Did Stargell actually carry the bronze MLB lifetime passes on his person and use them? “It’s interesting,” Imler says. “We know he got the case with the Hall of Fame pass. The pass itself shows less wear than the MLB pass. There’s minor general wear on the case itself. It definitely has the appearance of having used the passes, but it’s hard to know how frequently.”
How often do you see bronze MLB lifetime passes kept together as a pair, as these have been? “I can’t recall ever receiving them together in a case,” Imler says. “They could be sold independently, but we feel like Willie Stargell viewed them as mates, and they were viewed as mates by the family. We want to keep the presentation as it was kept by him.”
How to bid: The bronze MLB lifetime passes given to Stargell are lot 145 in SCP Auctions’s Spring Premier Auction, which opens on May 24 and ends on June 10, 2017.
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Image is courtesy of SCP Auctions.
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