Pacific Coast League Ball - Help DiMaggio and others
 

https://www.wheatlandauctionservices...entoryid=16120

Several months ago I bought this PCL ball via Wheatland. Hopefully the pictures show up in link above. This may have been from Uncle Jimmy’s collection as it was included in one of the various auctions.

I have been researching the history of the PCL and clearly in the 1930’s it had a tremendous group of talent and was very much the near major league before MLB expanded west.

Several names I can make out or listed are Joe DiMaggio, PeeWee Reese, Joe Gordon, Red Ruffing, Johnny Mize, Hugh Casey, Virgil Trucks among others. Besides trying to figure out some other names I was more curious as to a guess if this was signed back in the 30’s before Joe D went to the Yankees based on names listed or even the PCL ball etc. I did take a few pics myself, but I think the photos linked to the auction are better.

Any help appreciated.

Doing some Googling, it appears some of the players played in PCL but others did not and some of the years did not overlap.

DiMaggio played and broke records from 1932-1935 for SF Seals.

Reese played for Louisville Colonels in 1939.

Ruffing messes up the timeline since he played in minors fro 1923-1924 and majors through 1947.

Joe Gordon was a player in PCL in 1936 and manager/player after MLB career starting in 1951.

Mize played in minors from 1930-1935 but not PCL.

My guess is that it's a wartime ball. I'm pretty sure I've seen most of those names on signed items that come from the Pacific Theater. If everybody on the ball served there, I believe it would confirm it. I have a ball from Hawaii with some of the same names. There were also some games played on the West Coast between service teams that could have included those names.

That actually makes a lot of sense.

https://www.baseballinwartime.com/BI...tember2008.pdf

Another quick google and here is a link to a newsletter discussing that topic with a good list of names and essentially the names listed fall right in line with your theory.

Thank you!