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Have spent some time searching for more details on this incident but all references to
it so far have been vague and non-specific as to what the items were. Any detailed info
would be helpful if anyone recalls/knows anything about this and particularly the variety
of items involved. Programs are mentioned below but info on other items would be helpful.
Thanks.
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Sale of historic items
A further controversy erupted in 1982, when it emerged that some historic items bequeathed to the Hall had been sold on the collectibles market. It subsequently transpired that these had been lent to the Baseball Commissioner's Office, from where they had been taken and sold to offset personal financial problems by Joe Reichler, an assistant to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, possibly without verifying their ownership. Under pressure from the New York Attorney General, the Commissioner's Office made reparations, but damage had been done to the Hall of Fame's reputation.
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World Series programs from the Hall of Fame also wound up on the memorabilia market in the early 1980s. They had been sold to former Long Island dealer Rob Sevchuk by Joe Reichler, a longtime Associated Press baseball writer who later worked in Commissioner Bowie Kuhn's office.
Reichler, who died in 1988, reportedly claimed he had accidentally mixed up programs from his own collection with those loaned to the commissioner's office by the Hall of Fame in 1977. The programs were returned to the hall, and Sevchuk and Reichler were cleared of wrongdoing by Kuhn's office.
I did as suggested and asked Bill James if he knew exactly
what went missing. Here was his reply:
"They were, for example, World Series programs from very old World Series.
Comparatively valuable items of memorabilia, but not irreplaceable items.
The Commissioners' office eventually replaced the items with other items
of comparable worth."
