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1940 Cincinnati Reds Team-Signed Baseball w/Hershberger
This 1940 Cincinnati Reds team-signed baseball is noteworthy because it includes the exceedingly rare signature of Willard Hershberger, who was the first Major League player to commit suicide during the regular season. The Official National League (Frick) ball has been signed in black fountain pen by twenty-six team members, including Hershberger, Lombardi, Goodman, Walters, Goodman, Riggs, McCormick (sweet spot), Shoffner (sweet spot), Joost, Dejan, Arnovich, Turner, Gamble, Kraft, Moore, Frey, Baker, Ripple, and Myers. The notation "Reds 1940" is written in black ink on a side panel. Signatures range in grade from 3/10 to 7/10, averaging 6/10. The ball remains in Near Mint condition.Willard Hershberger made his Major League debut with the Reds in 1938. For the next two-and-a-half seasons Hershberger served as the backup to starting catcher Ernie Lombardi and performed well when given the chance. A strong hitter throughout his minor-league career, Hershberger batted .276 and .345, respectively, during his first two seasons, and even appeared in three games during the 1939 World Series against the Yankees.Although Hershberger had an easy-going personality and was well liked by his teammates, he was haunted by demons formed during childhood. When Hershberger was sixteen years old his father committed suicide using Hershberger's hunting rifle, which he neglected to put away at night after a day of hunting. For the remainder of his life he felt responsible for his father's death and formed a deep devotion to his mother, who he vowed to take care of for the rest of her life. As part of that promise, he never dated and was mostly a loner, rarely socializing with friends or his teammates. He was also an insomniac and a hypochondriac, conditions which began shorty after the death of his father. In the middle of the 1940 season, after an injury sidelined Ernie Lombardi, Hershberger became the Reds starting catcher. Unfortunately, the Reds promptly went into a losing streak, which Hershberger, irrationally, assumed was due to his poor play behind the plate. He became increasingly despondent over that period of time and on August 3rd he took his own life by slitting his throat in his hotel room during a road trip against the Boston Braves. He was thirty years old at the time and his suicide was the first ever by a Major League player during the regular season.
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