Babe Ruth was signed out of St. Mary's in 1914 to play for Jack Dunn's International League Baltimore Terrapins. When Dunn experienced some serious financial difficulties in the middle of the 1914 season he sold the contracts of Ruth and pitcher Ernie Shore to the Boston Red Sox for $8500 on July 8 1914. At the time of the sale Ruth had compiled a 14-6 record with Baltimore and he was immediately brought up to the Majors. He pitched and won his first game for the Red Sox on July 11 1914. Ruth was apparently not impressive enough for he was hardly used by the Red Sox during the next month on the roster making brief appearances in just three additional games. In August Ruth was sent back down to the minors to finish the season with the Providence Club of the International League. It was in a Providence uniform that Ruth hit his very first professional home run in a game against Toronto on September 5 1914.

The offered photograph (autograph notwithstanding) is one of only three large format original 1914 Providence International League team photos in existence that we are aware of. As a 19-year old rookie Babe Ruth looms large in the back row at the center of the image. Team photographs especially in the minor leagues are usually taken at the beginning of the season. The fact that Ruth is in this photo even though he joined the team so late in the year and played for only six weeks is remarkable. Ruth posted an 8-3 record with Providence and helped lead them to the International League Championship in 1914 and is the reason such an expensive and beautiful photographic display was produced. Measuring 11 by 14 the photograph demonstrates superb clarity and excellent contrast with titling and all players identified along the bottom border. As if the fact that this piece dates from the earliest days of Ruth's career and is one of the rarest and most historically significant baseball photographs in existence werent enough this example features the astonishing trait of having been autographed by the Babe. Furthermore Ruths non-personalized Best Wishes Babe Ruth inscription likely added in the late 1930s is beautifully rendered in extraordinarily bold black ink (graded GEM MINT 10 by PSA/DNA). Always aesthetically conscious Ruth chose the ideal area of the lower left margin of the picture to place his pen optimizing the presentation of the inscription without disrupting the central image above or adjacent text. The photo itself has minor creasing mostly at the perimeters and miniscule pinholes at each corner. There is a 1-1/4 by ¾ inch area of surface loss affecting the two players to Ruths left as he stands.

The mere existence of this photograph itself is remarkable but the serendipitous path it took back to Ruth decades after its creation to be autographed by the man who had by then become a legend is almost unfathomable. Includes full LOA from PSA/DNA (signature grade GEM MINT 10).