Bill Gladstone, a friend of the American Folk Art Museum and a collector of baseball folk art and related art, passed away on April 30 at the age of 88. Bill’s wife Millie, longtime museum volunteer, pre-deceased him in 2018.

Together, Bill and Millie formed the Gladstone Collection of Baseball Art, the primary source for the exhibition and book “The Perfect Game: America Looks at Baseball,” presented at the Museum in 2002-2003. A native of Brooklyn, Bill began collecting Dodgers memorabilia, then expanded to baseball-related art internationally. The Gladstone’s gift of Samuel Robb’s extraordinary Baseball Player Show Figure has been exhibited and published many times and is a highlight of the museum’s folk sculpture collection.

In 1992, Bill and Millie bought the ultimate baseball collectible, the Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Mets, a minor league affiliate of the NY Mets. They were then instrumental in moving the team to the Albany area of NY, where it is now the Tri-City Valley Cats, a Houston Astros farm team.