Expert: Tony Hutchens - 3/22/2006

Question
I have an autographed baseball with several signatures of baltimore orioles players on it.It is a bank of america baseball. I would like to determine what year it is from.Some of the names are: sidney pouson,tiny crouley,pat rapp,sam ellis,jerome job,cherles johnson,albert bell.I might have gotten some of the names wrong,but would love it if you could help me.Thanks-jessica

Answer
Hi Jessica,

   As you can tell, major league baseball players don't usually do a good job of making their signatures on a baseball very readable. I can recognize five of those names. They are Sidney Ponson, Terry Crowley, Pat Rapp, Charles Johnson, and Albert Belle. I do not recognize the other two names. But there is only one year that all of those players played together and that is the year 2000. So the baseball had to have been signed in that year. You can find a full roster of the 2000 Orioles at this site:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/stats/alltime/rosters/orioles/2000...

That might help you to recognize any of the other names on the ball. I hope this helps. Have a great day.

                                             Tony