| Source: http://www.baseballreliquary.org/baseballogy.htm
BASEBALLOGY 101:
An Exhibition of Baseball Art & Artifacts
APRIL 3 ~ MAY 26, 2000
RECEPTION: FRIDAY, APRIL 7, 7-9 PM
Alhambra High School Library
101 S. Second Street
Alhambra, California
The Baseball Reliquary will present
"Baseballogy 101: An Exhibition of Baseball Art & Artifacts"
at the Alhambra High School Library, 101 S. Second Street, Alhambra, California,
from April 3 through May 26, 2000. Coordinated by Alhambra High School
Librarian Cathy Doran, AHS teacher Mary Cannon, and the Reliquary staff,
"Baseballogy 101" will feature many artifacts from the permanent
collections of the Baseball Reliquary, some of which will be exhibited
publicly for the first time.
The exhibition will include:
The Eddie Grant Memorial plaque, originally
anchored to a stone monument at New York’s Polo Grounds and dedicated to
the first major league ballplayer killed in action in World War I. The
plaque, whose whereabouts remained shrouded in mystery for over 40 years,
was recently discovered in the attic of a Ho Ho Kus, New Jersey home formerly
owned by a New York City police officer.
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The text below was copied from http://www.mudvillemagazine.com/archives/07_2003/
and provides a little more info about the Eddie Grant plaque and how it
found its way to California.
| And yet even the Reliquary is not without
controversy. About three years ago, Albert (Albert Kilchesty, Archivist
and Historian) received a phone call from a friend who had just moved into
a house in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey. The house used to belong to the widow
of a retired New York City policeman, whose beat just happened to include
the Polo Grounds.
Apparently, this was one of the cops
who rescued the Eddie Grant plaque from some hoodlums seeking to steal
it after the last Giants game in 1957.
The plaque, for those unfamiliar with
the tale, sat beneath the towering Chesterfield Cigarette sign in the recesses
of deep center field. It was a slab of bronze that honored Eddie Grant,
the New York Giants shortstop who was killed in action during World War
I in the Argonne Forest.
The Reliquary negotiated a price for
it and shipped it west to add to their archives.
"Unfortunately," Albert says,
"we had no idea that out in New York there was a group whose sole
purpose was to locate this thing. They were crushed and started accusing
us of faking it. But why would anyone forge a 75 pound bronze plaque?"
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