This beautiful and intriguing unofficial ball has been signed in black fountain pen by sixteen participants in Major League Baseball's first Tour of Japan. Acting as early overseas ambassadors for their sport, several star players and their associates first visited the island nation in 1931 and again, on a larger scale, in 1934. This gorgeous ball is a far scarcer relic than comparable items from the second Tour. The 1932 edition of the Spalding Official Baseball Guide records the Tour's full complement of fourteen players, two managers, an umpire and a trainer, and sixteen of these men have signed this extraordinary souvenir. At the topmost portion of one side panel, the signature of Lou Gehrig can be discerned, with the scriptings of Larry French, Frankie Frisch and Lefty Grove aligned below. On another panel, the signature penmanship of Rabbit Maranville, umpire J.E. Reardon, Bruce Cunningham, Frank O'Doul, Willie Kamm and sportswriter/Tour organizer Fred Lieb can be viewed. Team manager Herb Hunter, Mickey Cochrane, George L. Kelly and Tom Oliver also share a panel. The printed legend, "Official Six University League of Tokyo," is deeply stamped on the ball's reverse sweet spot. Its formerly blank, opposing sweet spot accommodates the names of Ralph Shinners and Al Simmons, and the final side panel is devoted to an inscription ("To our good friend ... from the All-Star Team Tour - 1931"). Remarkably, a number of the scriptings have held up with solid clarity, and Lou Gehrig's handwriting, though faint, remains absolutely unmistakable. The traveling team, whose members' autographs adorn this amazing, lightly used ball, played eighteen exhibition games during their visits to Japan and Honolulu, and emerged victorious from each spirited local challenge. This is an important and extremely desirable team signed ball, and it stands as a distinctively attractive component of baseball history. LOA from JSA.

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