Collecting Game-used: A special day from the 'stone ages' ...

If you want to know how simple things in the everyday for sports have changed over the years -- just the recent years -- then this month's item is a perfect example.

It's less than a decade old, but there's no irrefutable video to show this one in action over on the MLB Film Room (at least not yet) database of video clips. And there are no added stats attached to this one -- at least on its MLB Authentication entry -- to offer up advanced into on stuff that some people love. (No biggie for me, spin rates aren't needed.) At a glance it's perhaps one officially from the stone ages.

What's this one's deal? Well, you can probably guess with those stitches ... it's not a bad photo, it's a specialty ball.

You can keep reading to see the details ... and maybe the ball in action.

Could this be the baseball I own captured in this photo? After some help from video ... no, it is not. 

THE BASICS ...
Game-used ball (MLB Authenticated): Cleveland Indians vs. Detroit Tigers, May 12, 2013
Watch it in action: Not this time ... unless somebody was posting full games over on YouTube.

The matchup: Indians DH Nick Swisher vs. Tigers SP Rick Porcello
The result: Fouled ball back to screen in the second inning of a 4-3 Indians win

What's Buzz-worthy: I picked up this ball in the past as it's one for my player as well as a ball that's from a specialty game -- one on Mother's Day that year -- so that's why the stamping and the seams are pink. I dig that on its own -- I don't own any others -- but it's even better that it's a ball that was hit off the pink bat of my player. Pink game-used bats popped up at times long ago for him on the market but I could never swing the prices ... so this is as close as I'll probably get -- and it got close enough to be fouled back to the screen at Comerica Park. ... Could the publicly available preview photo here via Getty -- a perfect resource for collectors of game-used memorabilia -- be the actual ball he fouled off in that photo? Update: No. A video sleuth found me a low-res look at the second inning at-bat and the photo above is from later in the game ... so that's not my ball. Swisher had bright-pink arm sleeves (you can see them in the on-deck photo below) on during the second inning when this ball was fouled off. They aren't in the photo above, so my previous ideas were wrong and deleted and my ball remains a mysterious treasure. I'm good with that.

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

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