Fall Invitational

Last fall I managed to BIN a nice lot of Topps Rookie Banquet related ephemera on eBay. I've finally gotten around to scanning the items and this week will show some of the non-photographic items (as I'm still working on player ID's).

I'll start with my favorite item:

I believe Sy Berger typed this letter himself-there's no secretarial initials, a load of personal detail, a host of typos and when I googled the recipient it revealed he worked in the Auto Industry (not audio). Even if he didn't, it's a pretty neat item. It seems this little trove was Mr. Dolembo's-Sy must have invited friends as he was the guy spearheading the whole thing.

There were three Rookie Banquet invitations.  I believe these all came in the envelope for 1960's bash:

The reverse is supposed to be blank but someone noted the address of the Rookie Team Committee:

I don't think that's where Major League Baseball was headquartered, it's probably the office of one of the committee members, which counted 17 members, including Jackie Robinson!

Here's an RSVP card and envelope, note the address, which looks to have been constant since this is from 1964:

The invitations did not really change all that much, did they?  I'll spare you the 1965 version as it's almost identical.

Finally, here's a business card for Sy. I believe it's from 1960 as the Blony logo was featured on the program that year.  Not sure who wrote "Wood Gelman" but I don't think it was Sy (or Woody).

The lot I won was part of a larger archive previously auctioned by REA in 2011.  Next week, I'll share the half dozen snapshots that came in it.