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Ernie Banks Negro League contract, Hall of Fame ring highlight Heritage auction
Though Mr. Cub Ernie Banks famously wanted to “play two,” baseball was not his first love.
Instead, Banks was a three-sport star at Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas, where he starred in basketball, averaging 15 points per game, football, where he scored 22 touchdowns as a junior and senior, and ran track, where he was one of the fastest runners.
Booker T. Washington didn't have a baseball team at the time, leaving the future Hall of Famer dabbling in other sports.
Then, in 1949, the Negro League Dallas Black Giants came calling.
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Banks played for the Black Giants in 1949 before the team was disbanded that same year. But his debut as a professional baseball player opened the door for his Hall of Fame career.
During the summer, Banks traveled with the Amarillo Colts at the urging of Negro League player-manager William Blair. During those road trips, he met another Negro League star — James Thomas Bell, a future Hall of Famer known as “Cool Papa” Bell. It was Bell and Blair who recommended that the historic Negro League team the Kansas City Monarchs take a look at the young Banks.
Two Monarchs representatives went to Banks' Dallas home before his senior year of high school and told his parents that once he graduated in the spring of 1950, he would have a roster spot for $275 a month, which Banks later said was, “big, big money to two people who had worked hard all their lives and never even come close to earning [that much in a month].”
Banks' signed Monarchs contract is one of the centerpieces of Heritage Auctions’ Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction, which closes Aug. 19-20.
It is one of three dozen items from the Ernie Banks Collection, including his 1977 Baseball Hall of Fame ring and other artifacts like his watch, golf clubs, a U.S. Open flag signed by Tiger Woods and his trademark “PLAYTWO” license plate.
But it’s the Monarchs contract that launched Banks’ Hall of Fame career.
“He once told me he did not want to go play for a professional league,” Regina Rice, Banks' longtime friend and the executor and trustee of his estate, said through Heritage Auctions. “He didn't want to leave Dallas. But from then on, his life was simply amazing. And he remained humble throughout it all.”
The four-page Monarchs contract launched a career that saw Banks play for former Monarchs manager and first baseman Buck O’Neill, who later became a scout for the Cubs, and landed him a spot on Jackie Robinson's barnstorming All-Stars alongside such major league greats as Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe and Larry Doby.
“Playing for the Kansas City Monarchs was like my school, my learning, my world,” Banks would later say. “It was my whole life.”
The Kansas City contract was found in a California storage unit after Banks died in 2015.
“I knew it was there,” Rice said through Heritage. “We got there and went through everything but couldn't find it. But I had a picture of it. So I went to one of the managers and said, ‘Hey, the contract is missing.' The guy says he remembered seeing it — and that the president of the storage company put it on display in his office. Sure enough, that's where it was.”
Cubs representatives met Rice at the storage unit to retrieve the contract as well Banks' honorable discharge certificate from the Army. The Cubs brought both documents back to Wrigley Field, where they were unveiled and turned over to Rice.
Banks’ Monarchs career was sidetracked in 1950 when he was drafted into the Army. When he was transferred to the Army reserves in 1953, his spot on the Monarchs was waiting for him, but as Heritage notes, so were the Cubs.
The Cubs purchased Banks contract for $10,000 on Sept. 8, 1953 and he played his first Major League game on Sept. 17, going hitless in three at-bats.
Banks started every game at shortstop for the Cubs in 1954, finishing second in NL Rookie of The Year voting. He won Most Valuable Player Awards in 1958 and ’59 and was named to 14 All-Star teams. He was just one of just three shortstops, alongside Honus Wagner and Cal Ripken Jr., named to Major League Baseball's All-Century Team in 1999.
Banks played in 2,528 games for the Cubs, the most in franchise history, and holds numerous Cubs records, including at-bats (9,421), total plate appearances (10,395), total bases (4,706) and extra-base hits (1,009). He also finished his career with 512 career home runs, putting him at No. 23 on the all-time list with Eddie Mathews.
Banks has long been known as the most popular player in Cubs history. During his famous 1977 Hall of Fame speech, he reminded fans why he loved the game he had played since he was a kid growing up in Dallas.
“We've got the setting: sunshine, fresh air, and we've got the team behind us,” Banks said. “So let's play two. … This will always be the happiest day of my life.”
Banks’ Hall of Fame ring represents both the end of his marvelous career and his love for baseball and the Cubs.
“He loved, loved, loved, loved the Cubs — I mean loved,” Rice said through Heritage. “He didn't need anything else. He didn't make a big deal out of any of it. Ernie said you have to learn to be content. He said, ‘I don't need much. I don't need these things. I will never forget anything.'"
