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Posted By: davidcycleback

Not commenting on the authenticity of the signature, but the ball does seem to have good provenance. The owner appears to have indeed been in the Yankees organization in the 1920s (didn't make the bigs but evidently knew Ruth and Gehrig), threw out the first ball at the 1984 World Series and has a baseball stadium named after him at Texas A & M. As a secondary information source, the Texas A & M University website states that Olsen joined the Yankees organization after graduating from A & M in 1923. This provenance doesn't in and of itself prove authenticity (That he played with the Yankees in the 1920s doesn't automatically mean he obtained the signature in person. Perhaps he obtained the ball for his collection years later). However, it's more substantial than than the ball being traced as far back as a garage sale last Tuesday.