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How MLB Authenticates Balls Like Aaron Judge’s 60th Homer

The baseball that Aaron Judge sent screams in the left stand at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday for his 60th home run of the season as opposed to his other 59 home runs this year.

It’s a special ball, specially prepared for him, and the rest of the balls he swings this year will be similarly different. They won’t gain any extra bounce, nor will their leash lift or anything else that might affect their flight pattern.

But they will be marked with something so secretive, and so subtle that Major League Baseball won’t reveal exactly what it is.

It’s all part of MLB’s validation program, a complex system designed to ensure that in-game memorabilia is verified as genuine and that it’s put to work for the Judge for the first time. in the ninth inning of the Yankees’ win on Sunday in Milwaukee, it was his first game. trip to the disc after he has reached 59 runs home.

From that point on, all of the balls that Judge swung came for the remainder of the season, as he managed to overtake Roger Maris’ Yankees and an American League single-season record of 61, set in 2005. 1961, there will be two special imprints.

One is an encoded stencil visible to the naked eye. The other is a secret sign that requires special technology to see. The ball, retrieved by a fan and given to Judge after the Yankees’ dramatic win on Tuesday night over Pittsburgh, was tested and determined to be the right ball.

said Dean Pecorale, the validator for MLB, who stamped his approval on the ball and several other items Judge requested authentication.

Other authenticated items included his bat, spikes, batting gloves and jersey, all of which were taken to the office of Lou Cucuzza, the Yankees’ club manager, where Pecorale and Another validator, Don Nesensohn, gave them an official blessing by pasting a code. Holograms glue the size of long nails on them.

Judge was careful in his selection, choosing only a few authenticated entries. That could change as he tries to tie and then break Maris’ record.

“I would imagine the next thing, they would knock him down and take everything he had,” Pecorale said.

The same goes for Albert Pujols, a skateboarder in St. Louis Cardinals, who had 698 home runs in his career. When Pujols ended in 700, MLB officials attached the same kind of secret sign to every ball that would be thrown at him for the rest of the season to make sure that no nefarious person could fake it. pretend that they have a milestone setting ball.

“It allowed us to verify some of the biggest moments in baseball history,” said Michael Posner, MLB Senior Director of Authentication and E-commerce. “How long does it take for a player to hit 700 home runs or set the US Championship home run record, surpassing greats like Ruth and Maris?”

The base program, in which former law enforcement officers witness items used in the game as they leave the field and coded holographic labels to them, isn’t just for events record. It works at every major league game, and has been for two decades. It only becomes overwhelming when a record or milestone is within reach.

In addition to the secret markings on the balls, MLB has specified an additional validator for polishing Judge and Pujols balls. Pecorale, a former New York City cop whose first endorsement at Yankee Stadium was in 2011 when Derek Jeter collected his 3,000th hit, had an assignment on Tuesday: Judge.

“There was a time when players didn’t really understand the show,” says Pecorale. “But most do now. Aaron definitely gets it. He came and looked for us”.

The MLB authentication team was formed after a series of fake autographs and memorabilia were discovered with the help of Tony Gwynn, a Hall of Fame quarterback for the San Diego Padres. Gwynn, who could spot fake signatures as quickly as a hanging slider, noticed in the late 1990s that some of the items allegedly signed by him were forgery.

That led to an FBI investigation, Operation Bullpen, which determined that about three-quarters of the signatures on the market were fake. The investigation resulted in dozens of convictions and prompted MLB to start an authentication unit so teams and players could verify their memorabilia and, in some cases, turn them into cash – at least. At least some are used to support charities.

In other cases, an authentic marker, such as a career first hit, 20th win, or an off-target player could be on the player’s fireplace at home or in the glass case at the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“It has shown a higher degree of confidence that the artifact is what it is supposed to be,” said Josh Rawitch, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY. . But the current system is the gold standard for authentication.”

Over time, technology – especially hologram stickers – has evolved to make the system virtually invulnerable, said Posner, who led the program. Game polishing gloves, field dirt, soles, broken clubs, hats, gloves, jerseys and more – about half a million items per year, from spring training through the World Series.

The “W” flag and ivy from the patio wall at Wrigley Field in Chicago have been authenticated, as are water bottles from the fountains at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., and seats from the decommissioned parks such as Shea Stadium in Queens.

Vin Scully’s headphones and scorecard were validated after his last Dodgers radio broadcast in 2016. In 2007, a bug spray was used. used to repel mosquitoes away from the Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain during the Cleveland playoffs is also stamped with authenticity.

“It was on my desk for years,” Posner said, “but then it disappeared.”

If someone wants to sell that sprayer today, they better have a special sticker as proof, or else the FBI could be called back into action.

The system relies on some 230 former law enforcement officers, hologram stickers and a chain of containment that can stand up to the most skeptical criminal court judge. Usually, two authenticators take the positions, one next to each dugout at each soccer field for each game. When a ball is taken out of play, it goes to an authenticator, like Billy Vanson, another retired New York City cop who worked on Thursday’s Mets-Pirates game. Seven at Citi Field. Vanson has spent most of his 25-year career in District 108 in Long Island City, Queens.

Now his area is a good camera next to the Mets’ dugout. The out-of-play ball will be thrown to Vanson, who has a hologram sticker on it and records exactly when it was used before putting it in the bag.

“You see the game in a completely different way as an authenticator,” Vanson said Saturday. “You have to pay very careful attention.”

When the bet is lower than the Judge’s home binge, a ball taken out of play and validated in the third round of a normal game can usually be purchased at the team store before the round. Saturday. Using information encoded on the hologram, fans can determine the pitcher, hitter, type of pitch being thrown, and the velocity of each pitch.

During Saturday’s game, a fan paid $250 for the second facility. After the third round, when bases were regularly changed, a validator met the base team by the tunnel and put a sticker on the back of the used base. It was given to a team official, who presented it to fans in the stands. Before the game, Vanson authenticated Pete Alonso’s shin guard, at the request of the Mets player.

It is a daily habit. But when players like Judge and Pujols are within range of a record or milestone, secret markings are applied to two dozen balls for the exclusive use of those players’ racquets. .

“We mark the balls before the game with a combination of letters or numbers and a secret sign that you can’t see with the naked eye and won’t work under black lights,” says Posner. “It’s a very specific thing and it’s very difficult to have the technology to see it.”

Encrypted balls are given to the pitchers, who deliver three balls at a time to the host disc umpire. The referee throws them at the pitcher in sequence, and they are removed from play after Judge and Pujols have completed their strokes. (That will continue for the rest of the season, regardless of whether or not they’ve passed their milestones.)

After Judge’s 60th run home, a Yankees security guard met the fan who caught the ball and took him to see Judge. The ball was given to the Judge, who passed it on to Pecorale. The secret signs have been verified, proving the ball is authentic. (Fans received four autographed baseballs and an autographed bat during the exchange.)

At that point, the validator’s job is done. They don’t care if the item is kept by the player, auctioned, or sent to the Hall of Fame.

“We can’t afford all of that,” Posner said. “It is about recording history in this moment. No one can falsely claim that they have the polishing gloves from that 62nd home run. They may say it, but if they can’t create a numbered hologram, then we know they’re not telling the truth. “

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