Thanks Ken for the tip!
With some additional searching, I am extremely happy to say this long family mystery appears to be solved! The ball is indeed a minor league ball, from the 1961 Salt Lake City Bees. (Makes perfect sense in retrospect, as my grandparents lived in SLC!). A link to the roster:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/mi...gi?id=43f39a2b
There it shows that they were indeed managed by none other than Freddie Fitzsimmons (the former teammate) and Herman Franks! (All the signatures I can make out are listed too!)
The Bees were then the AAA affiliate for Cleveland, and many of the players on the ball made it to the Bigs soon after...
Thanks guys so very much for this help! This is really cool to finally pinpoint where this family heirloom came from!
Cheers, David
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