BONUS: Baseball HOF library keeps close tabs on materials

In 1988, a theft took place from the Hall of Fame Library by an autograph dealer whose intent at the time was both to publish a book about autograph collecting and obtain the addresses and contact former players about selling their memorabilia. No, this wasn't the incident a few years earlier involving a member of the baseball commissioner's office that was made public through the Bill James book about the Hall of Fame. This was an incident that has been casually dismissed as rumor by Hall of Fame employees and otherwise swept under the rug by the FBI at the request of the HOF. For a small circle of influential hobby members, it has stayed a secret. This is the stuff of which fiction is made.An eyewitness to the theft, who spoke to Sweet Spot on the condition of anonymity, said he had once worked for the dealer and in this visit he gladly agreed to give him a ride to Cooperstown. The perpetrator took handwritten letters by Larry Lajoie, which were written on Lajoie Guide stationery. "There wasn't a letter there that wasn't worth less than $1,000," the source said, "and we must have looked at a thousand of them. I just couldn't believe what I was witnessing. I didn't say anything to him. I think I was in shock."

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