FWIW, the O'Day is real. Umpires are a different story, they would sign baseballs as a crew and give them away as presentation pieces or gifts. The Umpires signatures were there to show where the ball came from and not because of the "signatures". What I mean is that a group of Umpires (or a single Umpire) would keep game balls as souvenirs from World Series or Last Outs and write on them or sign them to show where the ball came from, so they are "signed" but mostly for presentation, not for the sake of autographing a baseball for a collector.
Players didn't really "sign" baseballs before about 1920 (or only for presentations), especially old timers without a current connection to the ball they were signing or the team involved.
|