Million Dollar Baseball Memorabilia Collection Donated To Stockton

GALLOWAY, NJ — A collection of baseball memorabilia appraised at more than $1 million was recently donated to Stockton University.

Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan's career spanned 27 years, from 1966 through 1993. He remains the Major League career leader in strikeouts (5,714) and no-hitters (7). Over time, real estate investor and former owner of the Shore Mall in Egg Harbor Township, Leo S. Ullman, has amassed a collection of nearly 15,000 Ryan items worth more than $1 million. This collection, believed to be the largest of its kind in the world, was recently donated to Stockton, the school announced in a press release.

Now, the school said it is developing a class on collecting for 2023, with this exhibit as its focus - which Ullman is "thrilled" about.

Ullman believes "it’s worth a course on the prospect and on the effort of collecting and creating value through collecting."

The collection encompasses a lot. "Thousands of baseball cards, bats, balls, hats, gloves, shirts, shoes, boots, stamps, postal cachets, coins, bobbleheads, statuettes, knives, saddles, posters, photos, paintings, carvings, pennants, Beanie Babies, exercise equipment, ice cream sticks, guitar picks and every kind of candy and food you can imagine. There are just enormous quantities of items that bear his name and likeness," said Ullman, 83, who lives in Sands Point, New York. "There are few products, with even the most remote link to baseball and baseball memorabilia, that did not merit his endorsement."

More than 8,500 baseball cards are in the collection, of which about 3,000 are signed by hand. But that's not all. According to Stockton, it also contains:

• signed cowboy boots;
• a full-size leather saddle featuring Ryan’s likeness;
• high school yearbooks;
• seven hand-painted baseballs, one for each of Ryan’s no-hitters, by American pop artist Charles Fazzino that are signed by Ryan;
• progressive proofs of a number of Topps cards, various proofs and pristine rookie and other significant cards;
• a watercolor painting of Ryan by Dick Perez of Perez-Steele Galleries that was used in Ryan’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 1999;
• and various items from his charity golf and fishing tournaments, his restaurants, his cattle ranches, his bank, his save in the 1969 Mets World Series victory, plus Hall of Fame items, baseballs and tickets from specific victories and strikeout achievements.

"Stockton is excited to become the new home for Leo’s vast and unique collection of Nolan Ryan memorabilia," said Leamor Kahanov, Stockton provost and vice president for academic affairs. "We believe the collection will be a great academic resource for courses like sport history or statistics."

"This collection is probably the largest private collection in existence and covers all types of memorabilia, from the mundane and common to the unusual and rare," according to a report by appraiser Leon Castner. "This collection is not simply an accumulation of individual items. It is an archive of modern sports collectability."

Ullman has had ties to Stockton for years, as he and his wife Kay funded the creation of the Schimmel and Hoogenboom Righteous Remembrance Room at the university’s Sara & Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center.

"As much as I admire Nolan Ryan, both as a person and for his career in baseball, without limit, the collection — and a book that will shortly be released on the collection — is focused not about Nolan Ryan per se," Ullman said, "but, rather, it’s all about collecting a very significant part of all that’s out there to honor this special iconic person."