A Mystery To Me ***Updated***

I spent this past weekend in Columbia visiting my brother.  As always, I took some time and visited the Columbia Antique Mall to say hello to Conrad, the proprietor of Chic Antiques.  I bought some cards and a ball from him (all of which will be posted later).  Conrad, when looking for Hall of Famers for me, found two unlabeled baseballs which he wasn't sure who the signatures were.  I was able to identify the first ball for him pretty quickly, Rollie Fingers.  The above pictured baseball, however, wasn't as easy to identify.

If anyone recognizes the signature, please shoot me an email, or comment on this page so I can let Conrad know who it is.  I don't have a clue, and I may even be holding it upside down.  Anyone have any ideas?  It doesn't look like any Hall of Famer that I'm familiar with.  He is also somewhat of a Braves fan, so it could be a Brave.  Maybe not.

****UPDATE****
Immediately after I posted this blog entry, my friend Zach identified the signer as Darryl Strawberry.  Now I need to let Conrad know.  Thanks Zach!

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.

Solve The Autograph Mystery

I was sent an email on Friday from a guy who found my blog.  Apparently he came across several signed baseballs.  He was able to identify Yogi Berra on one and Carl Yastrzemski on another.

This ball, however, the fellow has yet to identify.  I tried and was unsuccessful in identifying who signed it.  I was wondering if anyone in the blogosphere could tell who, if fact, signed this ball.  There aren't any awards for figuring it out, merely solving a mystery.  Any ideas?

I Need Help - Who's Autograph is This? (UPDATED)

My parents are in the process of purging a lot of things from their house and I came across this autographed baseball on my mom's shelf in her room. The ball holder had a LOT of dust on it and I cleaned it off. I was thinking that this might be Roger Clemens, initially, but I doubt it now. She would have gotten the ball between 1993-1995, I think. She thinks she has a COA somewhere, but she can't remember where she put it.

So, I am challenging all of you: Does anyone have an idea of who's auto this is? I would greatly appreciate some info. I'm sure it is someone pretty obvious, I mean, if my mom bought it, then it had to have been a star...

I appreciate your help!!!

**UPDATE - Blog readers Greg, Jim and Babe-O-Licious all were helpful and let me know that the auto is of Ryan Klesko. I imagine mom bought it back in the day because Klesko was very popular (and had a solid career in the majors). Thanks everyone for your help!