Enormous baseball memorabilia collection to be sold in Atlanta
Shaun Clancy believes it’s in his Irish blood.
“I’m a seventh-generation bar owner,” Shaun said.
Twenty years ago, he opened Foley’s NY Pub right across the street from the Empire State Building.
“I had a few pieces of memorabilia, very few,” Shaun said.
Every time a major league baseball player stopped in, they’d autograph a ball. Another player, another ball. In time, the whole place was decorated with all kinds of sports collectibles.
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“Every time you went in there, you saw something you’ve never seen before,” Atlanta Braves Radio Network host Kevin McAlpin said.
McAlpin figures he’s been to Foley’s nearly three dozen times, every time the Braves played in the Big Apple.
Among the memorabilia, there’s a home plate from the 2010 World Series signed by both George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. There’s also a photo of the king and the champ — Elvis and Ali — with signatures.
Shaun had to close Foley’s during the lockdown and never reopened. So all of the memorabilia, all 10,000 items, were packed up.
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“When the truck actually showed up, it was a lot more stuff than I remembered,” Brad Hainje said.
Hainje is the co-owner of Duck’s Dugout in Marietta, the sports memorabilia store that will soon begin selling the collection.
Shaun said it all must go, even all 4,000 autographed baseballs — with one notable exception.
“I don’t have the heart to part with it. It’s a baseball signed by Pope John Paul II. He’s a saint. I used to say, ‘I have one baseball signed by a saint and 4,000 signed by sinners!’”
There’s also a ball signed by Shaun’s children when they were 6 and 9 years old. He won’t part with that one, either.
The online and in-store sale will start next month. Some of the proceeds will go the charities the pub has supported for years.
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