Collecting Game-used: A Paul Skenes-related MLB beanball

It's BBWAA Awards Week for Major League Baseball and one of the most-notable winners made his way into my game-used collection this year ... well, sort of.

This month's ball in the Collecting Game-used series is another that came to me via a blind grab bag where all I knew was the date of the game ... but this time that wasn't to my advantage as, well, the baseballs pitched by the now-reigning National League Rookie Of The Year, Paul Skenes, command a 15x premium price over the rest of baseballs from this day and this game. Despite that, I rolled the dice, hoping for a possible inventory error or something interesting from what was still a Skenes start ... and I got just that.

Keep reading to see the details this time ... and the ball in action.

THE BASICS ...
Game-used ball (MLB Authenticated): Arizona Diamondbacks at Pittsburgh Pirates -- Aug. 4, 2024
Watch it in action: Four pitches -- see the first three via the MLB Film Room here (bottom row) -- and the one that made contact is embedded below.

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The matchup: Diamondbacks SP Ryne Nelson vs. Pirates DH Joey Bart in the second inning of a 6-5 Arizona victory.
The results: Three no-contact pitches before a HBP that started a three-run inning as part of a no-decision for Skenes. (Bart scored his only run off this appearance as part of an 0-for-3 day.)

What's Buzz-worthy: The 14th career start for Skenes included four Ks, three walks and five innings but no W -- but this ball, well, it's a win for me as a HBP is a relatively unique kind of game-used ball. It's a 1/1 in the case of this game and just the third beanball of Bart's season and the 16th of his career. (For Nelson, this was his fifth HBP of the season and sixth of his career.) The first three pitches of this ball's life to start the second inning can be seen at the link up top -- all no-contact save for being caught by Jose Herrera -- but a beanball is a beanball and a Skenes rookie start is, well, a lot cheaper this time. It was just $29.99 for mine (even less, really, if I do the discount math across three items in my order) vs. $499.99 for one Skenes touched ... even if it went into the dirt or was a whiff. For the bucks, I'm good with a Skenes-related beanball.

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>> See all past Collecting Game-used stories from Buzz here

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