At Whittier’s Baseball Reliquary, it’s always time for Dodger baseball.
Even before the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the New York Mets to win the National League title Sunday, Joe Price and his team at the nonprofit baseball shrine curated a revolving exhibit at Whittier College’s Wardman Library.
“We opened the exhibit on Oct. 8 during the Dodgers’ playoff with the (San Diego) Padres,” Price said. “We had a few items related to the Padres, Mets and Cleveland.”
But the bulk of the items on display, from autographed baseballs to a signed photo commemorating Sandy Koufax’s 15 strikeouts at the 1963 World Series, are Dodgers and Yankees-centric — just in time for the epic match-up between the two vintage teams, set to begin on Friday at Dodger Stadium.
“The Dodgers and the Yankees have been in the World Series more than any other team, and the matchup is especially significant now in the playoff era because it’s a rarity that the teams with the best records meet each other in the series,” Price said. “This is only the third time in the last two decades that the teams with the best records in the regular season are in the World Series.”
The showdown between the two iconic, cross-country rivals, the first in 45 years, has energized the guardians of the Baseball Reliquary. The nonprofit education group started out as a Pasadena-based traveling museum before it partnered with Whittier College in 2014 to establish the Institute for Baseball Studies.
The volunteers that run the institute are led by Price, a retired religious education professor at Whittier College and his colleagues, Charles Adams, who taught English there, and Mike McBride, a professor of political science.
They share the vision of Terry Cannon, founder of the Baseball Reliquary, who started his collection of baseball-related relics to bring fans of the sport together and celebrate baseball’s significance in American culture.
“Terry Cannon saw the possibility for a wonderful, culturally diverse and creative community of baseball fans,” said Steve Butts, who manages the reliquary’s social media. “Baseball is a worldwide sport that appeals to all genders and I would like to believe that we foster and give a platform for that possibility.”
His favorite items in the institute’s collection include Greg Jezewski’s art piece depicting Paseo YMCA (where the Negro Leagues was started in Kansas City) and the ball signed by both Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, the sports executive instrumental in signing No. 42 to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945.
“There are also wonderful relics of dubious provenance, including Eddie Gaedel’s jockstrap and Babe Ruth’s partially eaten hot dog,” Butts said.
Gaedel, the shortest player in the history of the league, wore the athletic supporter in 1951, at his lone appearance as a major leaguer baseball player. (The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, has Gaedel’s jersey.) Babe Ruth was supposedly noshing the now-desiccated hot dog before he collapsed on a train ride in 1925.
The Institute also has other storied items in its archives, including one of the most comprehensive private Dodgers collections in the world, donated by Dodgers fans Richard and Teresa Santillan and personal memorabilia and papers from Dodgers general manager Fred Claire, a unique trove of daybooks and Dodgers history from 1987-1998.
Price said the Santillan collection dates from 1958 on and includes more than 100 bobbleheads and promotional materials from the Dodgers and related corporations, such as cigarette lighters printed with the Dodgers schedule, school rulers, lunchboxes, and Christmas ornaments.
“If it’s related to the Dodgers, we have a sample,” Price said. “It’s an incredible resource on how the Dodgers evolved their presentation to fans.”
Instead of a Hall of Fame, the Reliquary offers the Shrine of the Eternals, which also includes Dodgers pitching legend Fernando Valenzuela, who was inducted into the Shrine in 2006.
By noon Wednesday, members of the Reliquary had posted a stream of tributes and memories of Valenzuela, who died Tuesday.
As for the 12th Dodgers-Yankees matchup, Butts said the showdown is one “fans love to hate with each team being from the league’s biggest media markets and possessing among the very highest payrolls.”
But the combination of its histories and star power in players such as Shohei Otani, Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman, Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto should make for well-pitched games and offensive outbursts played out on the big stage, Price said. (Butts predicts the Yankees in seven, giving them a pitching edge.)
No matter who emerges victorious, this World Series is setting up to be classic, Price said.
“I’m a Dodgers fan when they’re not playing my other favorite teams, I’ve identified with the Dodgers in the evolution of my fandom, from childhood with the Cubs and White Sox in Chicago to being in L.A. now for 40 years,” he said.
Butts said both the Dodgers and Yankees can boast iconic ties from baseball’s postwar golden age in New York.
“And even though there are fewer living connections to the Brooklyn Dodgers, there’s a component of the two team’s legacies beginning in the late ‘40s on through their multiple World Series matchups in the ‘70s, at another zenith for baseball,” Butts added. “Five or six of the game’s very best and most recognizable players are in this World Series. I would think that even the most casual of fans will want to see if they can rise to the moment.”
The Baseball Reliquary assembled an exhibit of Negro League memorabilia, and Jackie Robinson artworks and artifacts, at the Jackie Robinson Community Center, 1020 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena.
The Institute for Baseball Studies is open to the public on Fridays from noon to 5 p.m. and on other days by appointment only, at the third floor of Mendenhall Building, Whittier College, 7031 Founders Hill Road, Whittier. For more information, e-mail [email protected] or call 562-907-4803.
