Time for an update! Here are the acquisitions for the Museum of Minor League Baseballs, Fall 2017.
First up we have a 2001 Southern League ball.
All affiliated league balls featured the MiLB 100th Anniversary logo that year. I’ve been searching for this one (and a couple of other leagues) for, well, 16 years I guess.
Next an independent: a 2017 United Shore Professional League ball.
These have been hard to come by for me, so I had to settle for a game-used one. I’m also still in search of the inaugural season balls, which feature a special Inaugural Season logo on the south panel.
In October I was able to snag a late-’40s Inter-State League ball.
The stamping is extremely faded, but I couldn’t pass it up.
And probably the final addition for 2017, I snagged a 1948 North Atlantic League ball in pretty great shape.
This was one of the leagues that came and went with the minor league golden age, post-WWII. It only played 5 seasons, 1946-1950. This one is signed by the 1948 Carbondale Pioneers, a Phillies farm team, who won that year’s league championship by sweeping a four-game series versus the Peekskill Highlanders (a St. Louis Browns affiliate in 1948).