Cops, FBI Work to Wright a Baseball Wrong

Hub gumshoes are hot on the trail of a stolen will signed by an old-time Boston Hall of Fame ball player as part of a wider probe into black market memorabilia trafficking, the Herald has learned.

Boston cops are trying to broker a deal with a Virginia baseball collector to return a will signed by 1870s Hub star George Wright, a Hall of Famer who won six titles in the game’s infancy with the Red Stockings, a precursor of the Boston Braves. The document, a signed “executor’s bond” for the estate of Wright’s wife, Abbie, was among a batch of historic papers swiped from the Suffolk Probate Court in the late 1990s.

“We’re trying to work it out now with the person who is in possession of it,” said Detective Steven Blair of the Boston Police Special Investigations Unit. “I’d rather get it back in the Probate Court, which is where it belongs. If (the collector) doesn’t agree to give it back, we’ll pursue it criminally.”