Guilty plea in Babe Ruth mitt scam

It was a great story -- a beloved baseball glove that Babe Ruth kept under his pillow at a Baltimore orphanage and later gave to 1940s movie actor Robert Young, a priceless piece of memorabilia on sale for just $200,000.

But it wasn't true, and Thursday California resident Irving Scheib pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to wire fraud for spinning the tale in an attempted sale to an undercover FBI agent.

Officials said Scheib, 50, of Bonsall, Calif., who is married to Young's granddaughter, bought the 19th century "Full Web Workman Baseball Mitt" on eBay in January for $750, knowing that it had no Ruthian pedigree.

He then allegedly began trying to peddle it through a Nevada memorabilia broker, claiming the glove had been given by Ruth to Young in 1944 and passed down through Young's family. Young was best known for his leading-man TV roles in "Father Knows Best" and "Marcus Welby, M.D."

One buyer actually bought the pitch, authorities said, and paid for the glove, but backed out when Scheib refused to notarize a letter vouching for its provenance. Scheib then repeated the claims to an FBI agent posing as an interested buyer.

Scheib faces up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud. His lawyer could not be reached for comment.

"A baseball bat or glove is not inherently valuable; a bat or glove used by a famous athlete is," said New York FBI office head Janice Fedarcyk. " . . . That the glove ever belonged to Babe Ruth was a complete and elaborately constructed fiction."