Willie Mays Pre Rookie 1950 Trenton Giants Minor League Team Signed Baseball PSA For Sale

Beautiful 1950 Trenton Giants Team Signed Official Minor League Baseball With Willie Mays Pre Rookie Signature PSA DNA.

Willie Mays was not just one of the greatest ballplayers to ever take the field. He was one of the most important pioneers in the integration of the Major Leagues, one of the few great stars chosen to bridge the gap between the Negro Leagues and the Major Leagues, in the process experiencing great hardship but paving the way for his own great career and that of the others who followed. Presented here is a remarkable newly discovered baseball signed during his transition from the Negro Leagues to stardom in the Giants organization in the turbulent early days of integration in Major League baseball. This item is of enormous historical significance. 1950 Trenton Giants team-signed ball  include the signature of nineteen-year-old outfielder Willie Mays, who was making his minor-league debut that year. This ball almost certainly represent the earliest known team-signed ball bearing Mays\' signature.  Mays began the 1950 season as a member of the Birmingham Black Barons, a Negro League club he had been with since 1948. Shortly after the season began Birmingham sold Mays\' contract to the New York Giants, which assigned him to its affiliate in Trenton (a Class B member of the Interstate League) where he remained for the rest of the season. At the time, Mays\' arrival in Trenton was a historic occasion. Unbeknownst to many fans today, Mays was the first African-American ballplayer in Interstate League history and therefore had to endure many of the same trials and tribulations faced by Robinson on his way up to the major leagues. Despite the burdens of playing for a new club (thousands of miles from his home) in a then all-white league, and in front of often hostile fans, Mays flourished. He finished the season with a team-high .353 batting average (in eighty-one games) and the following spring was promoted to the Minneapolis Millers. Mays\' torrid start (a .477 average in thirty-five games) with Minneapolis led to his promotion to the Giants on May 25, 1951, where he helped lead the club to the National League pennant. The official Interstate League baseball has been signed in bold ink by twenty team members. The ball was preserved in incredible condition. This is the rarest of all Willie Mays autographs. A museum quality baseball. Comes with full letter Certificate OF Authenticity from PSA DNA.