Signed Photograph to Boston Red Sox Hall of Famer

Duffy Lewis was a left fielder and left-handed batter who played Major League Baseball for the Boston Red Sox in the Babe Ruth era (1910-17), and with Tris Speaker and Harry Hooper constituted Boston’s famous "Million-Dollar Outfield." He was a member of Boston’s great world champion teams in 1912, 1915 and 1918, the last teams to bring Boston a World Series victory until 2004. Lewis remained a New Englander and died in 1979 in New Hampshire at 91 years of age. He was elected to the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2002.

The mayor of Boston in the glory days of Duffy Lewis and the Red Sox was John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, who loved baseball and is remembered for throwing out the first pitches on opening days and greeting his Sox as they emerged from the clubhouse before World Series games. His daughter Rose was a great fan as well. In 1917, by then married to Joe Kennedy, she had a son and named him after her father – John Fitzgerald Kennedy. That same year, Lewis was traded to the hated Yankees, preceeding Babe Ruth to New York by just a year.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy ran for president. He had the noted photographer Fabian Bachrach take an official picture for him for use during his campaign, and presented one of these to Lewis.

An 8 by 10 inch black and white Bachrach Studio photograph of Kennedy, inscribed and signed by him “To Duffy Lewis, with very best wishes, John Kennedy.” It is a wonderful Boston association piece in addition to being a very scarce signed image of JFK. When Lewis died, he left this prized possession to a good friend, from whose granddaughter we recently obtained it. It has never previously been offered for sale.