Hollywoods most talented writers couldnt have come up with this script if they tried and yet it as true and well-documented as the passage of nearly three quarters of a century would permit. A young Navy pilot is shipped to the Pacific Theater in the middle of World War II. A Pittsburgh native he writes a letter to the legendary Honus Wagner then coaching for the Pirates during the tumult wartime Major League Baseball asking if Wagner would send caps from some of the Pirates players for his squadron. With the austerity of MLB during the War widely understood even the great Wagner may not have been able to comply with that so instead he sent Lt. JG Henry Pyzdrowski his own Pirates cap.

Thats a cool enough story already but it doesnt stop there. Honus sent the cap to Pyzdrowskis Fleet Post Office address in the Pacific but the aviators ship the U.S.S.Gambier Bay was sunk in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines and so the cap was ultimately forwarded to Pyzdrowskis home in Pittsburgh. And there it awaited him when he returned on survivors leave in December of 1944. Hundreds of sailors had been lost in the shark-infested waters as they waited for rescue for more than two days. Pyzdrowski had been one of the lucky ones.

Years later he would ghostwrite the story of this harrowing event The Men of Gambier Bay; an account of the battle in Leyte Gulf. The aviator had tried to reach the Hall of Famer by phone during that leave period in 1944 but failing that he returned to the Pacific Theater and promptly sent Wagner a postcard thanking him for his generosity. Three weeks before VE Day marking the defeat of the Axis powers by the Allies in the European Theater Wagner sent Pyzdrowski a full-color Crosley Field postcard noting that he was glad the aviator had received the cap and wished him well. That postcard elegant signed by Wagner would be a spectacular auction item all by itself but is provided here as additional provenance for a breathtaking piece of baseball and World War II memorabilia.

The cap is in superb condition. Remarkably Wagner has written his own name in ink on the interior band identifying this cap as his own. The postcard mentioned is in Ex-Mt condition with a 1-Cent stamp postmarked in Carnegie Pa. and a perfect Wagner autograph on the back. Another blazing Wagner signature graces the bottom of a two-page handwritten letter that Wagner had sent accompanying the parcel with the cap. That letter includes a passage where the Hall of Famer references the cap and notes that he had been using it all summer (the letter is dated September 19 1944). Wagner also talks about the fate of the current Pirates club and then chatting a bit about other teams in both leagues. He ended with passages alluding to the aviators very thrilling job and a sentence saying he hoped he would get the cap O.K. followed by Best to you and the Boys. And then Sincerely and that spectacular Wagner autograph No. 2.

The lot also includes additional letters adding to the provenance from Pyzdrowskis daughter Bill Hageman the author of Honus: The Life and Times of a Baseball Hero and from Pyzdrowski himself along with a newspaper article detailing the story of the sinking of the U.S.S.Gambier Bay.

Includes a full LOA from PSA/DNA (Wagner signature in cap). Wagner handwritten letter and postcard Pre-certified by PSA/DNA.