I'm not taking a position one way or another, but what I will say is that I'd like to see people sign their name on paper, and then take a ball in one hand and sign their name on it and then compare sigs. I think you're going to see some variation in height and slant on some letters. I guess that brings me to what I really wanted to ask. What are the exemplars that are being used to authenticate not only the Babe Ruth's in question, but any autographs? It used to be, before the internet etc, that most people used first hand autographs and legal documents as their exemplars. Now I believe that people are using 3rd party authenticated autographs as examplars. The problem with this, of course, is that if a mistake was made, and there are some "unusual characteristics" in the 3rd party auth sig, then that gets perpetuated down the line untl you have a bunch of people believing they know what a real sig looks like. What I would have liked to have seen in the article is first hand examples of Ruth on paper and on balls to show any differences, and then show the balls in question. But that's just me.
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