Let's go back to the OP's photo. The question we are trying to answer is "were the baseballs on the right signed by Babe Ruth?" Let's investigate.
Perhaps it is wrong to compare signed baseballs with signed flats. But what can we learn here?
I think most would agree that the examples on the left--the signed flats--were executed by the same person. And there is compelling evidence that that person was Ruth. I think, too, that most would agree that the signatures on the right--the signed balls--were executed by the same person. They are consistent, one to the other. But they do differ--in a precise and very consistent way--with the signatures on the left. The only way the balls on the right could have been signed by Ruth is if the difference in medium--paper vs. baseballs--accounts for those very consistent differences.
I contend the difference in medium cannot account for the difference in signatures. It would help my argument, I admit, for me to provide examples of Ruth-signed balls that look just like Ruth-signed flats. When I return home--I'm out-of-town tonight--I will try to do just that.
Remember, though, that in order to argue that the balls were signed by Ruth, one must show that Ruth's signature always differed from those shown on the left, and in just the precise way we see here, when he signed a ball. Thus, I argue, the existence of just one example of a Ruth-signed ball agreeing with a Ruth-signed flat proves--at least to me--that he did not sign the balls shown here.
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