Description:

Disney Walt

Polo ball signed “Walt Disney,” “Jack Holt,” and “Snowy Baker.” White wooden ball, 3” diameter, about the size of a baseball. Lightly soiled. The chipping on the ball occurred before it was signed indicating it is a game-used polo ball, probably hit by Disney!

Purchased by University Archives from Tom Donaldson, who states that this is “a polo ball that my father had signed in 1935 by Walt Disney, Jack Holt and Snowy Baker…”

On August 14, 1934, the annual midsummer list of polo handicaps was announced in New York. Ten goals was the highest rating. The “Los Angeles Times” reported, “The motion-picture colony in California, becoming more and more interested in polo, is represented in the list of changes by Will Rogers and his son, Will, Jr., both advanced two to three goals. Walt Disney, creator of Mickey Mouse, is listed at one goal instead of the beginner’s rating of zero … Other changes included … (Snowy) Baker, Rivera Country Club, 0 to 2…”

From MousePlanet.com: “[Will] Rogers was a huge proponent of the sport of polo, especially during the 1920s and 1930s, and it was on the polo fields of Hollywood where he met and became friends with Walt Disney … Walt had sent some of his top Disney animators … to Rogers' Santa Monica ranch to sketch him in action. Walt was ... planning on using Rogers in caricature form in a short cartoon titled ‘Mickey’s Polo Team’ (1936). Unfortunately, Rogers died tragically in an plane accident in August 1935, resulting in his caricature being removed from the short cartoon…”

The storyline of “Mickey’s Polo Team,” an eight minute short, involved a polo game between Disney characters Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, The Goof (Goofy), and the Big Bad Wolf and Hollywood stars Charlie Chaplin, Harpo Marx, Stan Laurel, and Oliver Hardy. Stars in the stands included Clark Gable, Shirley Temple, and W.C. Fields. The referee is western star Jack Holt. Australian boxing Olympian Reginald “Snowy” Baker was active in Hollywood teaching polo to a number of film stars. Disney had a studio polo team which would play against other teams, some from other studios.

The “Oakland Tribune” headlined a 1933 wire story on its sports page “Walt Disney Leads / Poloists to Victory.” Datelined “Los Angeles Dec 25 ‾ (UP) Walt Disney engineered his polo team to a 5 to 2 victory over the Los Amigos four and Snowy Baker led his Pirates to an 8-6 triumph over ‘Big Boy’ Williams’ Greyhounds in a brace of polo matches at the Rivera field here yesterday.”

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