Baseball used in the 1939 Claxton Shield Series
This baseball has green stitching to the seams and the leather is discoloured dark brown from age and usage. It has a small loss of surface to the leather. The ball sits on top of a wooden eggcup-shaped stand fashioned from a single piece of timber. The 'eggcup' is polished and the base is left as natural timber. The base of the timber is cracked. Under the base is a felt pad showing some insect damage.
This baseball was used in the 1939 Claxton Shield Series held in Melbourne. It was the sixth annual Claxton Shield, an Australian national baseball tournament. It was held at Richmond Cricket Ground, Albert Ground, South Melbourne Cricket Ground and National Park in Melbourne from 29 July to 5 August. It was the second time Melbourne had hosted the Shield Championships. New South Wales won the Shield for the third time, successfully defending their title from the previous two years. The other participating teams were Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland, who joined the other four states for the first time in the tournament. It was also the first year an Australian national team was picked primarily based on the Championships.
Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Claxton_Shield]
Details
Details
The baseball was donated to the Baseball WA Museum & Archives by Ben Shom, who was a member of the 1939 Western Australian team. Ben's baseball career spanned the 1930s to the 1950s. He was inducted into the Australian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018 and was an inaugural inductee into the Baseball WA Hall of Fame in 2021.
A very rare example of a baseball used in the 1939 Claxton Shield Championships; only the third time that Western Australia had competed in the competition. The ball has excellent provenance as it had been in the possession of Ben Shom, a member of the 1939 team.
Other items from Baseball WA
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1971 Western Australian Under-15 State Baseball Team selections - newspaper article
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1972/73 Western Australian State Under-17 baseball team
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Handmade baseball umpire's counter
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Western Australian baseball batting helmets
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1988 Western Australian State Under-16 Baseball Team
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1989 International Youth Development Squad Friendship Series — Australia Green
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1987 Western Australian State Under-16 Baseball Team
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1989 International Youth Development Squad Friendship Series — Australian Squad
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Baseball presented to Glen Dunstan, 1937 Newspaper Baseball League team captain
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1993 Australian National Youth 'B' Baseball Team
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