Collecting Game-used: Anonymous but authentic?

I'm a sucker for a mystery grab bag on a lot of fronts and this one, well, is one of those results that has a story ... or really a bit of an anecdote behind it with a team you might have heard a lot about lately.

It's a ball with not one, not two but three authentication stickers taking over one panel -- and not all that aesthetically -- but that's because it started out as a Steiner Sports acquisition from a team and then when Fanatics bought out and took over Steiner then it stickered it up, too. (Ironically neither of those codes works ... it's no big deal and I chuckled.)

Meanwhile, the MLB Authentication sticker is the one that matters the most ... and this time it definitely revealed something of note. Sorta.

Well, you can keep reading to see the details ...

THE BASICS ...
Game-used ball (MLB Authenticated): Tampa Bay Rays at New York Yankees, May 17, 2019
Watch it in action: Nope, not this time ... keep reading

The matchup: Yankees 4, Rays 3
The result: Unknown as this is a generic ball ... but with three authentication stickers.

What's Buzz-worthy: Plenty of stuff gets used in a game these days -- and a ton gets MLB stickered -- but there are teams that really don't bother and let that history gets lost to anonymous instances like this. Sometimes those balls and other items might simply be warm-up, bullpen or other cast-aside items without any potential statistic applied and that could be the case here, too. This ball? It's clearly got some use to it but since the Yankees are a team that has, at times, not bothered (they do more now than times in past) stickering it is what it is right now ... anonymous. I'm told by a veteran game-used collector that the Red Sox don't document anything at home and the Cubs don't do a ton, either, much like the Yankees and perhaps the White Sox in this unusual coronavirus season as well as past years. So, what happened in this game? The Yanks scored three in the bottom of the ninth -- including Luke Voit's 11th homer of the year -- to win it and the Rays had solid games from Brandon Lowe and Austin Meadows. CC Sabathia had the start but didn't get the win, while Gleyber Torres also had a hit here, too, but nobody will ever know what scuffed up this ball in the Yanks' 43rd game of the season. This is the kind of simple item that could make for a nice in-person auto ball for somebody who was in the game or a simple item for a new game-used collector buying on the cheap. This was around or less than the price of two blasters though I did buy hoping it would have been a ball with names attached in the mystery bag. Oh well, maybe next time.

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

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