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Lot # 656: 1950s Hollywood Stars PCL Game Worn Jersey

Category: Baseball Equipment

Starting Bid: $200.00

Bids: 6 (Bid History)

Time Left: Auction closed
Lot / Auction Closed




This lot is closed. Bidding is not allowed.

Item was in Auction "2023 Summer Classic",
which ran from 7/16/2023 7:00 PM to
8/5/2023 10:00 PM



If ever a team lived up to its nickname, it was the Hollywood Stars, of the Pacific Coast League. In 1938, the San Francisco Missions moved to Los Angeles and became the second version of the Hollywood Stars. An earlier Hollywood Stars team existed from 1926-35. Offered is a game worn late 1950s Hollywood Stars jersey. In '39, one of the team's owners, Robert H. Cobb, owner of the famous Brown Derby restaurant, decided to spark interest in the team by involving real Hollywood stars as part owners in the team. Some of the many Hollywood stars or celebrities who owned a small interest in the team: Gary Cooper, William Powell, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, George Burns & Gracie Allen, Gene Autry, Cecil B. DeMille, and Bing Crosby. During the 1940s through the early 1950s, the Stars had Major League affiliations with the New York Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago White Sox, and Brooklyn Dodgers. In the team's later seasons, the team was a Triple A franchise, and for a few seasons in the 1950s an "Open Classification" team," a designation meant to denote the Pacific Coast League team as above Triple A, as the PCL, before big-league baseball came to California, was trying to become a Major League. Not only did the Stars have movie star owners, but movie stars were often at the games at Gilmore Field. The Stars also had talent on the field as well: Hall of Famers Bobby Doerr, and Bill Mazeroski, plus stars Lefty O'Doul, Babe Herman, Dale Long, Gene Freese, Gus Bell, Bob Meusel, Dick Stuart, Gus Zernial, and many others. The presented jersey has a Goodman tag in the collar. It has nice, trim accents, and #12 on the back. All identifiers sewn on in red and navy tackle twill and in a desirable style. There are a few small stains, the collar trim is loose near the bottom and has some loose threads. There is a red star on the left sleeve. Six silver-colored buttons are in front. The jersey is sourced from the collection of Tom Morgan, a former Major League pitcher with the New York Yankees and five other teams. He pitched for the Yankees in 1951-52 and 1954-56, and he was on three New York Yankees World Championship teams with a lifetime Major League record of 67-47. Morgan never played for the Hollywood Stars, but in his first professional season, 1949, he was on the Ventura Yankees, in California and in close proximity to the Hollywood Stars. Morgan also lived in Southern California, so he might have easily obtained the jersey through a number of means. The jersey makes a great item from an iconic team that won three Pacific Coast League Championships and was in a very popular league, as the Pacific Coast League, prior to the arrival of Major League baseball on the West Coast in 1958, was basically "Big League" in California.

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