Only three times in Cooperstown history has the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) inducted a 4-man Hall of Fame class. It last happened in 2015, and before that you have to travel all the way back to 1955, when Joe DiMaggio, Ted Lyons, Dazzy Vance and Gabby Hartnett got the nod. They were joined by Veterans Committee selections Home Run Baker and Ray Schalk in what became the most highly attended HOF Induction Ceremony since the museum's grand opening in 1939! 

Presented here is Schalk's own baseball that he signed and passed around to his fellow inductees and other attendees that very day. The shellacked, medium-to-heavily toned "Official League" ball averages "6-7" autograph strength for the key, identifiable signatures of Schalk (d.'70), DiMaggio, Lyons, Hartnett (d.'72), Baker (d.'63) , Cy Young (d.1955, signed just three months prior to his death!), Joe McCarthy, Cal Hubbard, Warren Giles, Frank Frisch and Ford Frick. It's dated from Cooperstown on the Baker panel, "July 25th 1955."

Accompanied by a handwritten Schalk family LOA from Ray's niece, which reads in part, "What year did Ray go into Hall of Fame? Aug? I know dad & his brother Walter went...I got a postal & then a program/bookend etc. from dad from Cooperstown telling me of the event. I know Ray made the effort to get that ball signed by as many as he could for dad." Full LOA from JSA as well.