Hi Mike,  I take it there were no other names on the programs?  Can you get the name of the person's estate you bought them from?  I'm asking because he may have signed it for someone he and might have known.

My father was a photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times and covered mostly all Chicago sports events from the early 50s to the early 70s.   I woud have been 14 on that day and starting when I was around 11 during the summer months I would go with him to all Sox and Cubs home games.  My father and I were very close and to this day I miss him terribly.  He passed away from brain cancer in 1974 just a week before my son was born and was named after him.  I would have to say more then likely I was there with him the day he signed it.   If he did not sign it for someone he knew, it probably happened during batting practice.  As you probably know reporters and photographers are allowed on the field for pictures and interviews until they remove the batting cage.  My best guess is some kid hung it out over the wall near the first base dugout hopeing to get anyone on the field to sign it.   Not sure of that either because it seems strange to me that if he did there would be others on it as well, so there does seem to be a mystery here.  It would be cool if you could find out the name and age at death of the person it belonged to.  That way we could find out how old this person was in '56.  It was really neat for me as a kid being on the field with him and mingle with the players.  In fact due to the slow speed of film up to the early '50s, for night games only, photographers were allowed on the field right next to the 3rd base coaching box for the entire game.  If you ever look at old game films of night games from that period, you will be able to see them.  I served as his caption writer, so I was kneeling right there on the field spotting for him.   I'm probably one of the few remaining people alive today who can say they watched a Major League ball game standing  a few feet from the 3rd base coach.   I was there with him for the three World Series games in 1959.  He got an official American League baseball and went around to most of the Sox players and had them sign it, so I would think it has to be considered a one of a kind ball as opposed to those one could have bought while they were at the game, which I still have today.  The story for me does not end there.  A few years out of High School I joined the Navy as they has an excellent photography school as I thought I wanted to follow in my Dad's footsteps.  when I got out in the late 60's however there were no jobs available.  However the owner of the Sun-Times also owned WFLD-TV an up and coming UHF TV station and I hooked with them as a TV camera operater.  They managed to get the contract for the White Sox games away from WGN and I wound up as one of the remote sports TV cameraman doing the Sox home games.  I operated the high first base camera which was in a basket that hung from the uppper deck and it was right next to a similar basket most photographers, including my father covered the games for the newspapers from.  So for a period of about 20 years, one way or another I worked side by side with my Dad for all home sox games.