"1933" Detroit Tigers vs Washington Senators baseball
 

Was hoping to get some advice on this.

I recently picked up a baseball that JSA authenticated as a 1933 Tigers vs Senators baseball. The major appeal for me was a rookie season signature of Hank Greenberg.

In reviewing the ball though, and going through some of the lesser name I noticed that Ralph "Red" Kress, Rudy York and Flea Clifton did not play for either team in 1933, but did in 1934. The ball is also signed by Del Baker who managed the team for 2 games in 1933, but didn't in 1934. All the other players (17 in total) played for one of the 2 teams in both 1933 and 1934 (interesting 3 players actually played for both teams those years).

Looking closer, York only played in 3 games in 1934 and his debut with the Tigers was against the Senators. Meanwhile Baker was the 3rd base coach for the Tigers in 1934, explaining his presence.

Based on this I am pretty certain the ball is not from 1933, and therefore does not feature a rookie-season autograph of Hank Greenberg. Based on this I would be inclined to request a refund from the seller. The issue is that the LOA from JSA says 1933.

Any advice appreciated.

Yep. Definitely a 1934 ball. JSA doesn't do that much research into what year a ball is from, often taking the word of the person getting the item certed. I have seen this quite often.

Tom C

Thanks for confirming what I assumed.

The seller (on eBay) does accept returns, so I may go that direction.