⚾ Bob Horner Signed Atlanta Braves Light Blue Baseball Jersey JSA COA — Born Junction City, Kansas — Arizona State University — 1978 #1 Overall MLB Draft Pick — 1978 NL Rookie of the Year — 4 Home Runs in a Single Game (1986) — A Season in Japan with the Yakult Swallows — JSA Certified Autograph

⚾ A Bob Horner signed Atlanta Braves light blue baseball jersey, authenticated by JSA (James Spence Authentication) Certificate of Authenticity. The light blue jersey is the powder blue road uniform that the Atlanta Braves wore from 1974 through 1992 — the polyester-knit, double-knit fabric, Saturday Night Fever era uniform that every team in baseball wore in powder blue on the road during that stretch of the sport, and that has since become one of the most nostalgically charged jersey colorways in baseball collecting. Bob Horner signed this Braves powder blue road jersey, and JSA authenticated the autograph as genuine. Condition: NOS.

🌟 Junction City, Kansas — Arizona State University — The Player Who Went Directly from the College World Series to the Major Leagues

Bob Horner was born August 6, 1957, in Junction City, Kansas — the Fort Riley military community in Geary County in the Flint Hills region of the state, where the Army post and the city have been intertwined since the fort's establishment in 1853 and where Horner's early life gave no indication that a baseball career of the magnitude that followed would emerge from that specific geography. He played his college baseball at Arizona State University as a Sun Devil under coach Jim Brock — the ASU program that was the gold standard of college baseball in the 1970s, producing more MLB Draft picks per year than virtually any other program and developing players in the Phoenix desert under a coach whose ability to refine talent was nationally recognized. Horner's senior season at Arizona State in 1978 was magnificent enough to make him the consensus #1 overall prospect entering the draft. Condition: NOS.

⭐ Atlanta Braves — #1 Overall Pick 1978 — Went Directly to the Major Leagues — 1978 NL Rookie of the Year

The Atlanta Braves selected Bob Horner with the first overall pick in the 1978 MLB Draft, and what made his arrival in professional baseball historically unusual was what came next: rather than sending the first overall pick to the minor leagues to develop, as virtually every organization did with every player regardless of talent level, the Braves brought Horner directly to the major leagues. He made his MLB debut on June 16, 1978, playing his first professional game at the highest level of the sport, and he hit a home run in that debut game. He went on to be named the 1978 National League Rookie of the Year — a first-year-player award that he won while having played exactly zero games in the minor league system. The precedent he set for direct college-to-majors arrivals was and remains extraordinarily rare. Condition: NOS.

🏆 The 1986 Four Home Runs — The Japan Season — The Retro Blue Jersey That Tells the Full Story

On July 6, 1986, Bob Horner hit four home runs in a single baseball game — joining a very short list of players who have accomplished the feat in a single nine-inning game in MLB history. The Atlanta Braves lost the game despite his performance, adding the historical footnote that the four-homer game happened in a loss, a peculiarity of baseball mathematics that doesn't diminish the individual achievement. In 1987 a salary dispute with the Braves led Horner to sign with the Yakult Swallows in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball league — a season that made him a celebrity in Japan and gave the American baseball world an unusual window into what a major American player looked like operating in a Japanese professional context. He returned to the United States in 1988. The light blue powder blue jersey signed by Horner and certified by JSA represents all of it: the Kansas kid, the Arizona State Sun Devil, the first overall pick, the Rookie of the Year, the four-homer game, the Japan adventure, all in powder blue Braves road colors. Condition: NOS.

📦 Item Details

Item: Bob Horner Signed Atlanta Braves Light Blue (Powder Blue Road) Baseball Jersey. Authentication: JSA (James Spence Authentication) Certificate of Authenticity. Athlete: Bob Horner. Born: August 6, 1957, Junction City, Kansas. College: Arizona State University Sun Devils. MLB Draft: 1978, 1st overall, Atlanta Braves. Award: 1978 NL Rookie of the Year. Notable: 4 HRs in a single game (July 6, 1986); 1987 season with Yakult Swallows, Japan. Condition: NOS.

⚾⭐ Junction City. Kansas. Fort Riley country. Arizona State. The Sun Devils. Jim Brock. The best college program in the 1970s. 1978. The draft. Atlanta. The Braves. Pick one. Overall. The direct path. No minor leagues. June 16, 1978. The debut. A home run. The big leagues. First game ever. 1978. NL Rookie of the Year. The powder blue. The road jersey. The polyester era. 1986. July 6. Four home runs. A single game. A loss. The four-homer loss. 1987. Japan. The Yakult Swallows. Tokyo. The celebrity season. JSA certified. The blue jersey signed. Condition: NOS.