This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 5/11/2001.
Although Miller Huggins stood barely 5-foot-6, his influence looms as large in the annals of New York Yankees history as any other figure, including the enormous one of Babe Ruth. Huggins came to manage the Yankees in 1918 and marshaled the team into winning its first six pennants and three championships. He became so powerful that when he slapped Ruth with a fine and suspension for carousing in 1925, the Yankee bosses supported him, not the Bambino. Huggins was deified by the press as a peerless manager, and when he died in 1929 at age 50, his god-like presence remained, in part because of a massive framed photograph of him that was hung on the clubhouse wall at Yankee Stadium, in which a smiling Huggins appeared almost life-sized. That very framed picture is offered here, and we regard it as one of the most magnificent and historically compelling items we've ever seen. The 27" x 39", heavy wood frame has a sweeping, curved edge that surrounds the glass-covered Huggins photo. The paint has chipped along the periphery of the frame and the photo itself shows warping only in the upper left and bottom left gray areas, safely removed from Huggins' ghostly visage. The overall appearance of this cherished item is that of an antique museum piece, and makes one see why Huggins' unsinkable spirit is a pillar of Yankee tradition.