King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Holy s___! An 1898 National League memo about swearing is a f______ amazing artifact. Or a G______ hoax.

Editor's note: This column has been updated since its original publication.

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Dec. 6, 2007 | A New Jersey auction house specializing in 19th-century baseball memorabilia has made a hell of a find, if you'll pardon the language. It's a document that seems to be an 1898 memo from the National League, titled "Special Instructions to Players," warning them -- in unbelievably scatological terms -- that obscene language will be dealt with by suspensions ranging from one day to "all time."

The letter describes an incident during "the championship season of 1897" -- what we'd call the regular season -- in which a fan asked a visiting player who was pitching that day and was told "in a loud, brutal tone, 'Oh, go fuck yourself.'" The document goes on to say that a committee formed that offseason to study the issue had "received a deluge of information that was so appalling as to be almost beyond belief."

Then it offers some examples, which are blue enough to singe the hair off Earl Weaver's ears. "I'll make you suck my ass!" might be the most civil of the bunch.

Robert Lifson, president of Robert Edward Auctions, and several experts both he and this column have consulted say they believe the document is authentic, though that belief is not unanimous. And it's possible that the letter could date from the 1890s but still be a hoax or a joke rather than a legitimate league memo.

The letter had belonged to the late Al Kermisch, a baseball historian in Baltimore who collected memorabilia from that city's rough-and-tumble baseball dynasty of the 1890s, the Orioles. The bulk of Kermisch's treasures had been sold off as part of an $8.7 million auction in April, but caretakers of his estate found a few more things and delivered them last week to Robert Edward Auctions.

Lifson began combing through the new lot, made up mostly of tickets, photos, that sort of thing. He came upon the letter, which starts slowly, dryly describing the 1897 encounter in which the fan -- or crank, in the parlance of the era -- was invited to perform the above-mentioned act of self-love. That invitation is where things kind of pick up.

"This was not anything that when I saw it, I thought, 'Hey, this is worth a fortune,' or anything like that," Lifson says, estimating the document will sell for a few thousand dollars at most. "I started, you know, going to sleep reading it. And then my ears perked up. 'What am I looking at? What is this?' I really did think it was some kind of a joke."

It looks like it. After another dry paragraph arguing that such coarse behavior is common and urgent action is needed, it's Katy bar the door! The letter lists eight examples of oaths that would make Tommy Lasorda blush.

Next page: "It's hard to appreciate exactly how much of a hot-button issue this was." Plus: Thursday NFL pick