Posted by: Steve Hemmingsen - 07/01/2009 12:00 AM
The Twins are playing fair to muddling, about average, which is okay for us Midwesterners, so it’s a good time for a baseball story.
For just a few seconds there the Lincoln County Pioneer Museum in Hendricks thought it had it; that one item, that one work of art, that one signature piece, an artifact that had been lurking for years, dormant, the caterpillar building up its strength to become a beautiful butterfly, that every museum craves.
I’ve been through the museum dozens of times in my decades in the little town by the lake but somehow missed it until curator Allen Johnson pointed it out, a beat up old baseball with a curious label. 
Was this ball hit by the legendary Honus Wagner? See for yourself at the
The card says the baseball was donated by Clarence Juenke in 1969, the year I came to KELOLAND. The terse description says: “This base ball has been autographed by Haurner Wagnes, a friend of Babe Ruth. It was a foul ball caught during a game in
I never heard of a Haurner Wagnes, but I have heard of a Honus Wagner, the Pittsburg Pirate shortstop who was among the first five players in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ty Cobb, the nastiest baseball player ever says Wagner who played 17 seasons starting in 1897 was the best all around baseball player ever. The Flying Dutchman had a batting average of .329, plus 722 stolen bases.
That’s only the start of the story because Wagner is better known for his baseball card than his spectacular baseball career. The last Honus Wagner card to hit the market sold for two and a half million dollars. That’s because Honus Wagner still believed that sports figures had an obligation to set a good example for young people, or at least not set a bad example. 
The most expensive baseball card of all time and The Flying Dutchman.
When his baseball card came out, you had to buy a pack of cigarettes to get it and Wagner, a non-smoker, didn’t want kids buying cigarettes to get his baseball card. He stopped that streak at 57. It’s not the rarest card in the world, but it is the most expensive because of the story. I'm guessing he wouldn't have signed that pro-smoking petition in South Dakota.
Back to that baseball in the museum; who could verify all this? I emailed the baseball lady on Antiques Roadshow, Leila Dunbar in
In a last shot at provenance, I turned to Eldro Juenke, Clarence’s son. He’s mystified. Doesn’t know anything about the ball, who played with it after the signature, or where his father may have come by it, except that he did have two uncles in
And there’s still that other baseball “Case” Juenke donated at the same time, a mysterious black baseball. We’re still working on that. Maybe they played baseball in the snow. Anybody around
The baseball will be rolling around the museum this weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 5, during the Hendricks Summerfest, three solid days of spectator and particpation activites from kickball tournaments to talent contests to chicken bingo, where you win a prize for guessing where a chicken will "download." It's got to be hotter than the Zip Pig races used to be. 
In fairness, there are also events in Toronto and Gary if you want to make the circuit. It's Toronto's 125th anniversary and Gary is celebrating the renovation of the old South Dakota School for the Blind, including South Dakota's newest lake.
12:00 AM
