Major League Baseball signed by Ed Mitchell

Major League Baseball signed by Ed Mitchell

An American Major League baseball, signed by Apollo 14 astronaut Ed Mitchell. He has also written the story of the ‘Lunar Olympics’ on the different faces of the ball.

Apollo 14 was a remarkable mission for many reasons, yet it is perhaps best remembered for Alan Shepard hitting the first golf ball on the Moon. At the end of their second and final EVA, Shepard and Lunar Module Pilot Ed Mitchell decided they had time for a little fun. Shepard had brought with him two golf balls and a 6-iron. By modifying the 6-iron, using the handle from a rock collecting tool, he was able to hit the first golf balls on the Moon. Slightly less well known is the fact that Mitchell took the Solar Wind Collector experiment and dismantled it to fashion a makeshift javelin from the shaft.

Mitchell used this baseball to recount the story of how he managed to throw his javelin four inches further than the first golf ball Shepard hit – therefore winning the first ever ‘Lunar Olympics’. Shepard hit a total of two golf balls on the Moon, the second of which he famously claimed went “miles and miles and miles”. Mitchell threw his javelin later on, landing it in the same crater as Shepard’s first golf ball and therefore, in Mitchell’s opinion, winning the ‘Lunar Olympics’. The small crater was subsequently named ‘Javelin Crater’ and the golf ball and javelin can be seen side-by-side in an image taken from the window of the Lunar Module before the astronauts left the Moon.

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Web resources

• NASA Apollo 14 Mission Page