Taking Another Look At My 1930s Signed Baseball

I have a nice mystery on my hands with this signed baseball that I got from Heritage Auctions.  When I first got the ball, I thought it would be fun to try to figure out approximately when it was signed and by whom.  It looked like a lot of the signatures on the ball were from late 20s early 30s Washington Senators until I found one name who never played for them.  He was a Cardinal.  Hmm.

So, I want to first take an overview look at the ball and see what I can figure out, and then maybe see what some folks with better eyes than mine may be able to deduce as well.  The ball is a Spalding ONL baseball with Red and Black stitching.  After doing some Google searching, the ball is a 1929 - 1933 John Heydler Spalding ONL baseball.  One of the faded 'signatures' on the ball is the Heydler stamp.  Interesting.  It can be seen just below the Joe Cronin signature.  Some other names that I can make out on that panel are Ossie Bluege and Ed Gharrity.  I will cross reference these names on Baseball-reference.com and do a post about each individual name when I confirm them.

Here is a better shot of the 'Bluege' and 'Gharrity' signatures.  Again, once I confirm the name, I will do a blog post profiling the player.  This should be fun.

This panel has names that seem like they could be fairly easy to read.  I'm seeing: Someone that looks like Jack J something..., Bill Sherdel, Pauly Moore?, Les Ruhburg?.  I need to try to confirm all of these...

 Here is a better shot.  Looks like the top one could be Randy Moore, maybe.  I don't know.  The bottom one might be Les Richburg?

These are going to be tough.  I see Fred Macguire and Wes Smithwick?

Finally, these look like Sam West and Joe Kuchel?  We'll see.

So, I think doing the detective work on this will be a lot of fun.  I will write down the names that I think I see and cross reference them first with teams that Cronin played on.  Some of the names, like Bluege and Sam West are easy enough to read, so I think I should be able to do some relative age dating on the ball and come up with a possible team that this could have come from.  I wonder why the person got several Washington Senators on an ONL ball.  Maybe we'll never know.

Hall of Fame Signed Baseball - Joe Cronin

When I started my HOF signed baseball crusade back in 2010, I was hoping I could get most of my HOF subjects on single signed baseballs.  I realized pretty quickly that this would be an expensive task, so I became more open to the 'multi-signed baseball.'  My first Hall of Famer that I have been able to get on a multi-signed ball is Hall of Famer Joe Cronin.

A single signed baseball of Cronin runs anywhere from $400-$800, so I was happy that I found this ball from the late 20s-early 30s, multi signed by a number of Washington Senators, for $80 on Heritage Auctions.  Cronin's signature doesn't quite look like his later signatures, but the ball came with a JSA LOA saying all signatures on the ball were genuine, so I will take their word for it.  So, that being said, welcome the 87th Hall of Famer into my collection!

Joe Cronin (b. 1906 - d. 1984) played in the majors from 1926 to 1945 for the Pirates, Senators and Red Sox.  He had 2,285 hits, 170 home runs and a .301 batting average.  He appeared in the 1933 World Series, which the Senators lost to the New York Giants.  Cronin was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1956 (his 10th year on the ballot) when he received 78.8% of the vote from the BBWAA. 

Cronin was named manager of the Senators in 1933 (serving as a player/manager) and led his team to the World Series.  He was traded to the Red Sox in 1935 and served as player/manager until he retired from playing in 1947.  He continued to manage the Red Sox until 1947.  He led the Red Sox to the World Series in 1946, which they lost to the Cardinals.  After the 1947 season, Cronin became the Red Sox General Manager.

As General Manager of the Red Sox, Cronin was integral in the Red Sox refusal to trade for or sign an African American player, making them the last major league team to integrate (which occurred after Cronin's departure).

Cronin was elected AL President in 1959 and served in that capacity until 1973, when he was succeeded by Lee MacPhal.

I will do some subsequent posts on the rest of the signatures on the baseball.  It appears that most of the players are from the late 20s-early 30s Senators, but one player on the ball was on the Cardinals, however, that player had retired right up until the rest of the players I noted were active, so it might be safe to assume he could have been a coach.  I need to continue to look at the ball and try to figure it out.  More to come!