Rare Honus Wagner autograph donated to historical society in Carnegie
Brad Hundt/Observer-Reporter
CARNEGIE – On a Saturday morning, most likely in 1945, Jacob Schmitt was accompanying his father on a routine shopping expedition in downtown Carnegie when they saw an older man, about 70, walking down a street going about his own business.
But the senior citizen wasn’t just any other retiree out for a stroll. It was Honus Wagner, the legendary player for the Pittsburgh Pirates who was then – and still is – considered to be one of the greatest players in baseball’s history.
Wagner lived in Carnegie, the community where he was born, so it wasn’t all that unusual to see him at stores, at the Elks Club or any of the borough’s other establishments, and he was always friendly to anyone who wanted a handshake or an autograph. Schmitt’s father scrambled to find a piece of paper and pencil – ballpoint pens were still a couple of years away from being commonplace – and they approached Wagner and he wrote in careful cursive, “To Jake, with best wishes from Honus Wagner, Pirates 45.”
Schmitt held onto that precious scrap of paper as he grew into adulthood and became a dentist in Scott Township and a resident of Bethel Park. Before he died earlier this year, Schmitt said he wanted the autograph to be donated to the Historical Society of Carnegie, and in July it found a permanent home in the historical society’s Honus Wagner Museum.
Schmitt’s daughter, Kim Miller, said that her father didn’t talk a whole lot to her about the encounter with Wagner, but brought it up to her husband. After Schmitt died, they found the autograph under a chair, carefully framed and wrapped in butcher paper. When Wagner autographs are offered for sale, they can be pricey – somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000 to $5,000 – but Miller said she never considered putting it on the market.
“I had no intention of selling it,” Miller said. “All of my dad’s wishes, I tried to carry out to the letter.”
The autograph is now one of three Wagner signatures in the historical society’s collection, the other two being a postcard and an Elks Club sign-in sheet.
“We’re super excited that this is available,” said Jeffrey Keenan, president of the Historical Society of Carnegie. Keenan isn’t sure if Schmitt ever visited the Honus Wagner Museum but “we’re going to assume that he knew about us.”
Newspaper clippings, portraits and a bat that Wagner endorsed and actually touched are in the historical society’s collection. One thing that is not, Keenan pointed out, is a vintage 1909 Wagner baseball card, which is the rarest and most sought-after of cards among collectors. Should you discover one in a shoebox in an attic, you would probably be able to sell it for $7 million or more.
Keenan noted that the Honus Wagner Museum is one of only a handful of museums dedicated to the lives of careers of individual players. Some of the others are the Clemente Museum, dedicated to the life and career of Roberto Clemente, in Pittsburgh; the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls, N.J.; the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore; and the Ty Cobb Museum in Royston, Ga. Admission is free to the Honus Wagner Museum.
“We’re really proud of Honus and we’re really proud of the museum,” Keenan said. “We’re just chugging along.”
Hours at the Historical Society of Carnegie are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. For more information, go online to carnegiehistorycenter.org.