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In 1927, five-year-old Elliot Spencer contracted a life-threatening infection of the blood, causing the New York City Health Department to post a quarantine notice on the door of his family's Bronx apartment. When a microbe-phobic neighbor noticed the sign, she went so far as to sprinkle yellow disinfectant powder on the Spencers' doorstep. As fate would have it, her husband was Doc Woods, the fabled Yankees trainer of the 1920s. Once he discovered what his wife had done, Woods roundly chastised his spouse. The next day, a contrite Eugenie Woods showed up at the Spencers' threshold bearing not more sulfurous powder but a baseball that her husband--along with the entire team, including sluggers Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth--had signed. The baseball must have possessed curative powers, for young Spencer recovered and grew up to enjoy a career as a chemical engineer, living to age 71. Long before his death in 1994, the baseball had become a family heirloom. Elliot's son Brad donated the autographed ball to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, adding to the more than 100 baseballs in its collection. Other treasures include a 1937 ball signed by Buck Leonard and other players for the Homestead Grays, the legendary Washington, D.C. Negro League team, and a ball bearing the autograph of Jackie Robinson from 1953, six years after he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and integrated the game. For the first half-century of the game--beginning in the 1870s or so--an autographed ball was quite a rarity. The major leagues ordained that balls were to be kept in play until they were no longer usable, and spectators were obligated to throw back any horsehides that came their way. Not until 1920, the year the Red Sox traded Ruth to the Yankees, did the leagues keep fresh balls in good supply and allow spectators to keep what fell in their laps.

Profiles cigarette connoisseur Virgil Johnson who gave his collection of 6,000 cigarette packages to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. His obsession with cigarette advertising and packaging design; Vow for cigarette abstinence; Documentation of cigarettes through the ages.

Focuses on the history and cultural import of Converse Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers. Popularity of the shoe, which is named for one of its designers, basketball player Chuck Taylor; Donation to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 1992 of a commemorative pair of Stars & Bars sneakers; Changes in the athletic shoe industry, including technological changes, marketing and cheap overseas labor; Impact of athletes marketing other brands on the popularity of Converse shoes.