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Eric
07-01-2007, 02:51 PM
From today's New York Daily News

The Score hears ...
By Jesse Spector & Michael O'Keeffe

Love for 'The Glove'

The Score hears great things about "The Glory Days: New York Baseball 1947-1957," the exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York that examines the Big Apple's golden age of baseball. But the exhibit is missing one important artifact - where is the glove Mickey Mantle wore during his 1956 Triple Crown season? Where is the glove the Mick used to make that terrific catch to preserve Don Larsen's perfect game?
It is kept in a safety deposit box in a Pittsburgh bank by Dennis Esken, one of the nation's top glove experts. Esken loaned the glove to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for five years but recently brought it back home.

"It may be the most important artifact of 1950s baseball. It is the only Mantle glove from the '50s still around," Esken says. "Isn't it beautiful?"
Esken, a longtime critic of the auction houses and authenticators who dominate sports memorabilia, says it's interesting to see the reactions of people when he shows them the glove. "When I showed it to old ballplayers like Ralph Kiner and Mel Stottlemyre, they said, 'Wow, that's a historic piece of leather.' When I showed it to memorabilia people, they just offer me a low-ball price."

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/hockey/rangers/2007/07/01/2007-07-01_one_hall_of_a_career_for_mess.html