NEWPORT BEACH – Tucked in a bend of Newport Center Drive across the street from Fashion Island, the Newport Sports Museum is now nearly empty of its treasures.
The walls and displays in this 8,000-foot space used to include a 1965 Sandy Koufax-signed and game-worn home Dodgers jersey from his World Series and Cy Young-winning season.
It showcased a pair of 1981-82 season Kareem Abdul-Jabbar game-worn, autographed sneakers, and the pair of skates and a wrist cast that Marcel Dionne wore on March 20, 1986, when he became the second-leading scorer in NHL history.
It also displayed several sets of engraved golf clubs custom-built for U.S. presidents, including one, Richard Nixon, who has personal links to the man who founded and faithfully curated for the museum for 18 years before it closed in March.
This was once Orange County’s own little Cooperstown, Canton and Hockey, PGA and Basketball hall of fames – all assembled by John Hamilton, 73, a Corona del Mar real estate mogul and civic leader who wanted to share his love for and the lessons of sports with everyone.
He never charged admission to the place. Apart from some private corporate sponsorships and a few donations, he personally bankrolled the museum all along, never making any money doing it.
He wanted this to be a classroom. He invited athletes there for talks to busloads of schoolchildren and has seen nearly 100,000 youngsters matched with mentor sports stars through two decades.
Now Hamilton is having to un-build his museum memory by memory. He has taken great effort to return all the donated items that were among the more than 10,000 significant game-used artifacts and autographed memorabilia from nearly every major sport, legendary event and icon.
“I returned the (former U.S. President Ronald) Reagan golf clubs to the Reagan Library,” said Hamilton on Tuesday. “Now, I’m sending back two hockey jerseys.”
But most of the items Hamilton bought himself. No telling – really, he won’t say – how many millions of dollars he spent to acquire all these collectibles and to operate a museum around their display.
These days Hamilton has become a consignor to recoup some of his investment. The fourth of five online auctions featuring Newport Sports Museum items closes Saturday at Laguna Niguel-based SCP Auctions (www.scpauctions.com), with the final lot available in November.
“It has been painful to do because so many of the items have a story that’s personal to me,” he said. “That’s how it is with the Nixon golf clubs.”
Among the items available in this week’s auction are five sets of clubs used by former U.S. presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, George W. Bush and Nixon.
He purchased the Bush set in Dallas from the personal chef of the then-Texas governor, who was leaving for the White House. He bought the Eisenhower set, with the grips modified for Ike’s arthritis, and flew the clubs back from Augusta National as a carry-on.
“When I told the pilot what they were, he didn’t want me to check them either,” Hamilton recalled. “He let them ride in the cockpit the whole way, giving them the presidential treatment.”
Hamilton’s most personal connection lies with the two sets of clubs used and well-worn-out by Vice President and later President Nixon.
Hamilton and his family had been friends since the 1940s with the would-be 37th president.
Hamilton’s grandfather, John B. Reilly, financed Nixon’s first campaign for Congress in 1946.
Hamilton’s late mother, Patricia R. Hitt, of Laguna Beach, served as the national co-chairwoman of Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign and was the former assistant secretary of Health, Education and Welfare from 1969-1973.
Hamilton was 12 years old when he attended the 1953 inauguration of Eisenhower and vice president Nixon. He met Nixon several times, welcomed him in his former Villa Park home and last saw Nixon in 1990 at the dedication of the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library. Nixon died in 1994.
“I thought that he was a wonderful man, brilliant with foreign policy and greatly skilled,” Hamilton said. “What happened with Watergate killed what great plans he had domestically.”
In 1999, from Nixon’s nephew, Don Nixon, Hamilton purchased the circa 1953-61 Wilson golf bag – with four amply used MacGregor woods engraved with “Richard Nixon VP” on the bottom of each club head – and eight Toney Penna V.I.P. model MacGregor irons engraved with “Mr. V.P. Nixon.”
The bag carries Nixon’s “932” Burning Tree Golf Club (Bethesda, Md.) member tag.
Nixon’s 1970s custom signature model clubs have three PGA branded woods and irons that carry the Presidential seal and “Mr. President” on the club heads. This set was gifted to Hitt from one of Nixon’s daughters, Julie or Tricia, and then became part of Hamilton’s collection.
“Right after I got them, I had a chance to play with the Eisenhower and Nixon sets at Big Canyon,” Hamilton said. “Of course, they’re older clubs that don’t have today’s technology but they held history.”
Now the Nixon clubs are Lots No. 637 and 638 on SCPAuctions.com, each with minimum bids of $7,500, and soon to leave the Newport Sports Museum to go to the highest bidder.
They were treasures, like so many others, that Hamilton had cherished and generously shared for free.
Contact the writer: masmith@ocregister.com
