Help solve the great baseball mystery
 

I have a really interesting mystery and would be grateful to anyone that has any insight. I am a huge lifelong Cardinals fan and my childhood hero growing up was Jack Clark. A few years ago Jack sold some of his personal stuff from his career including his two Silver Slugger awards and some home run balls. Recently on an impulse (I usually dont buy a lot of sports memorabilia) I bought his 300th home run ball from the guy Jack sold it to back in 2007. I received the ball and a letter from Jack stating this was his 300th home run ball that he hit while on the Padres on July 30th, 1990 and he even signed the ball "My 300th". There was no doubt in my mind that the ball and the letter were indeed from Jack Clark as there are also pictures of him signing the ball.

Now here is where the mystery begins. As I was looking at the ball I noticed that it said "A. Bartlett Giamatti" as the National League President on the front. Out of curiosity I looked up online and discovered that Giamatti had served as National League President from 1986 until his sudden death in 1989. After his death William D. White became the president. So my obvious question was how could this ball be from a game in 1990 with Giamatti's name on it as president when he had been dead for a year? I have talked to a few people and done a bunch of research but so far no one can tell me 100% if it is possible for a ball used in 1990 to still have Giamatti as president on the ball. Do you think a team would use balls that still had Giamiatti as the president in a year when there was another president? There was also the fact that the lock-out occured at the beginning of 1990 so I wasnt sure if that would make a difference as well.

Any help solving this would be greatly appreciated!

does anyone know where jack clark lives, maybe he can shed some light on it himself?

I had a similar question when it came to finding Giamatti baseballs inside Coleman boxes. Rawlings did do a reprint of the Giamatti ball for some reason, but it was my understanding that they were not used in games and were sold at discount in the 1990's. Does the ball have a Haiti stamp underneath the Rawlings logo? If not it is one of these reprints, if it does then it is from the actual period when Bart was President.

Here's a website that has what seems like pretty good information, including photos. Doesn't show anything Giamatti used in 1990 but it does show Giamatti in 1989.

I guess it's possible that the Padres could have had some leftovers from 89 but it seems odd that they would be using them in late July.


Interesting reading anyway, good luck on your search!

http://photos.bigleaguebaseballs.com...LL-010.JPG.php

Jack Clark went through bankruptcy, did he not? Your obvious concern is that he was simply passing this ball off as his 300th, not realizing the problem with the ball's stamping, to make some extra cash. Whoops.

The Haiti stamp or lack thereof will provide you all the evidence you need. I hope you can find the guy you bought it from and maybe even Clark.

Can't MLB shed some light on this?

What was the date of "Dude's" 300th HR?

At what point the game was played in the season could potentially be a factor. If the HR was hit late in the 1990 season I think you could eliminate that as a good probability, FWIW.

Thank you for all the responses and for all the interesting insight! The date of the home run was July 30th, 1990 Padres vs Braves. The ball does have the Haiti stamp and definitely looks like a game used ball. I am going to try and attach a few pictures of the ball. I guess my only concern is that maybe Jack grabbed another ball that he had and said it was his 300th HR, whether intentional or not. There is writing on the ball in ink that looks pretty old that says 300th HR and the date and who he hit it off. He then signed "My 300th" when he sold it in 2007.

Another forum member sent me a private message and said in his experience in the industry often times balls from previous years are used even if the commissioner has changed, that especially back in 1990 they would never just throw away good balls. Also the fact that Giamatti died suddenly would make it even more likely they would still be using his stamped ball in 1990.

All in all I am leaning towards this being the actual ball, just funny how it just had to have the Giamatti stamp which would naturally make me question its authenticity.

Attachment 62640

Attachment 62641

Attachment 62642

Clark 300th
 

Considering that Kent Mercker's name is spelled wrong on the ball, it would make sense that Jack wrote it! As for believing anything he says, I'd be careful.

Wouldn't be the first time there was a descrepancy on a milestone HR ball. Remember Mickey's 500th? That was a fiasco! I was at the Guernseys auction where it was pulled.

I would agree with this and as I said before, considering The Dude's financial woes, smoke starts to appear. Hope I'm wrong.

After working for a major league team for seven years and seeing the "ball vault" I would not be surprised that older balls would be used in a major league game. I doubt that the guy rubbing up the balls would have cared and I am certain that back then, MLB didn't pay much attention to this either. There would have been nobody that said "these are last years balls, we cannot use them" as they probably got mixed in with the current years shipment in the vault.

This does raise some red flags but I would not be at all surprised that a ball from '89 would be used halfway through the 1990 season.

Thanks for the information from your experience working for a major league team! I have emailed Big League Baseballs with the story and with the information I have received so far and am hoping to get some more insight.

I have no insight into this, but it does make sense that if Giamatti died suddenly and unexpectedly that they'd have a boatload of Giamatti balls left over. I don't know if would be their practice to just throw them out.

Nope they wouldnt throw them out due to the cost involved with buying the baseballs. It all depends on how many were left in the inventory. I would assume if just a few dozen were left they would either use them in game situations or just use them for batting practice, but throwing them out surely did not happen.

I have discovered in the last few days that while Giamatti died in 1989 he did become the overall baseball commissioner before the 1989 season and therefore Bill White was president of the National League the entire 1989 and 1990 season. So while i think it is possible that some Giamatti balls were used in 1989 doesnt it seem a lot less likely they would carry over all the way to mid 1990?

Unfortunately, I think you've solved the mystery. I say unfortunately, because the ball is probably not legitimate based on this information. Clark wouldn't be smart enough to know to check the label on the ball before passing it off as his 300th, a mistake most players would make, especially those looking to make a quick buck or two.

If Bill White is the NL president from the start of the 1989 season, then there might be some '88 Giamatti balls floating around in the first half of the '89 season, but much less likely in mid 1990. Doesn't pass the smell test to me, but again, I hope I'm wrong.

Jack Clark lived in McKinney, Texas, in 2007 and 2008 (I used to work with his daughter), and he now lives in Plano, Texas, which is just 15 miles north of Dallas.

Brandon, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't the balls produced for each season based on who was the league president at the beginning of the year, not the beginning of the season, and therefore 1989 ONL balls would bear Giamatti's name, not Bill White's (since Giamatti was still NL president on January 1, and named Commissioner on April 1).

To my mind, this would seem to be a reasonable assumption since there has to be some lead time to the production of the thousands of balls that would be used in games starting in early April. You can't name a new NL president on April 1, and then 2 days later on Opening Day have a truckload of balls show up ready for game use.

Actually I believe he lives in St. Louis. I know he has a show on KFNS AM 590 and his own website says he currently resides in St. Louis.

Just to be clear, I really dont think Jack intentionally tried to pass this ball off as his 300th. If it is not the actual ball I would tend to think maybe the ball was mixed up with another ball he had. The ball is obv 100% from that time period and had information about the 300th hr written on it from what appears to be a while back well before Jack thought about selling the ball. Also, the ball was not sold for that much money so it would seem odd to try and fake it intentionally for such little gain.

It is amazing where all this research leads and how interesting this is all becoming (to me at least ha). I have been emailing with Big League Baseballs and one thing they sent me was this article:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...me+balls&hl=en

In the article it address the issue that was just brought up about producing the balls with the White signature. Basically it looks like Rawlings was trying to get all the teams the new balls by opening day 1989 but they acknowledged Giamatti balls would prob still make it into games. Once again this would lead me to believe seeing a reg season game in July of 1990 would be highly unlikely. However, things were definitely a lot different back in 1990 so who really knows if the Padres just happened to have some extra cases of Giamatti balls that made their way into games in 1990.

That article makes me think the ball is real. We know they had Giamatti balls before the season started and Rawlings rushed to get NL teams White balls. So imagine they have cases of Giamatti balls in their storage. When the new White balls came in they get stacked on the cases of Giamatti balls. As the season goes on the White balls are depleted and the Giamatti balls are used before a new shipment arrives. That would explain why this ball would be used in July. It sounds reasonable to me. The guy in charge of getting balls out of storage probably doesn't care or even check whos name is on it.

EDIT: See post below.

But realize that article is talking about the start of the 1989 season and JC hit his 300th on July 30th, 1990, a year and half later. I totally agree with your assessment for the 1989 season and I do actually think its possible for that same scenario to occur into the 1990 season it just seems a little less likely IMO.

This is the absolute worst part about this business. You have a really cool, one of a kind item, and there's absolutely no way to prove if it's real. I'm going through the same thing right now, and I'll probably never get an answer.

Keep in mind that any information about whether the ball itself is accurate to the correct season can only disprove whether the ball is what it's said to be. Even if you know with 100% certainty that the ball is correct to the time period of the event, you would still be taking Clark at his word that that particular ball was indeed his 300th and not just another ball he grabbed out of the same case. It's just a question of where you take your leap of faith, and how wide the gap is that you have to cross in that leap. Knowing the ball came directly from Clark with a letter stating what it is narrows the gap much more than buying it from some random individual on Craig's List who related the story over the phone, but even so, there is still the question of Clark's reason for selling it and whether his memory and/or integrity are 100% accurate. (I'm not questioning Clark's integrity myself, but others in this thread have, showing that questions will and do arise with this type of item).

At some point, the gap either narrows enough that you feel comfortable moving forward, or it remains wide enough that you bail on the deal for fear of falling in. Different folks have differing levels of comfortability, with some willing to make super-human leaps across wide gaps of information, and others being unwilling to step across the slightest hint of a crack. It's all relative to your own comfort level with the information available.

I totally agree with everything you said here. What's funny is if the ball had been a William D. White signature ball I never would have questioned its authenticity beyond that point. I did not buy the ball to resell it, Jack was my childhood hero and I thought it was a really cool piece of baseball history. With what he wrote on the ball and his letter stating this was indeed his 300th that would have been enough for me to take that leap of faith. Of course it just had to be a Giamatti ball which has led me down this path. I am a detective by nature so I feel like I have to do as much research as possible even though I know ultimately there will never be a definitive answer. I really enjoy hearing everyone's insight and appreciate the overall discussion in this thread.

I look at it like this. You're not going to resell the ball, Jack says it's the ball, there's a posibility that the Padres still had some of the old balls in use (they're my team and believe me they're too cheap to throw anything out)...I don['t see a problem. Now, if you see another one up for sale in the future with Jack's COA, then he's got some " 'splaining to do Lucy". I say enjoy it but keep your eyes and ears open.