[bender07]

Hey all, selling a very unique (earliest professional) autograph of Whitey Ford on a 1947 Butler Yankees team signed ball.

$OLD

Here's a description from when one was sold in Heritage about 5 years ago.

1947 Butler Yankees Signed Team Baseball with Whitey Ford. Spending his entire Major League career with the Yankees, Whitey Ford was a ten-time All-Star who played on six World Series champions and won the 1961 Cy Young Award and the 1961 World Series Most Valuable Player Award. However, the first professional team Hall of Famer Whitey Ford ever played for was the Butler Yankees of the Middle Atlantic League where he was 13-4 with a 3.84 earned run average as an eighteen-year-older straight out of high school.



This is perhaps the earliest known signature of Hall of Famer Whitey Ford on a baseball and, as such, a unique baseball treasure. Middle Atlantic League baseball is inscribed "Butler 1947" on the sweet spot with league president Elmer M. Daily's facsimile signature on a side panel. It is signed by twenty with "Ed Ford" clearly penned on a side panel in blue ink. The autograph has faded evenly but is still very legible with some discoloration over the top half of the "E." Other signatures include Vic Fucci who hit .338, Raymond Faust who won fourteen games, and Frank Verdi who hit .319 and went on to be a teammate of Whitey Ford on the Yankees for one game and a lifelong friend. It is Verdi's son who is consigning this ball.