Nolan Ryan 7/30/90 300th win

[doug.goodman]

According to Retrosheet, who tend to know what they are talking about, the game was on July 31.


July 30 - Witt gets the win
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1...300MIL1990.htm

July 31 - Ryan gets the win
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1...310MIL1990.htm

Doug

PS -
Just a comment, my opinion could be completely worthless, but I hate season passes for every game of a season being marked as a specific game. I'm trying to come up with a witty analogy, but suffice to say I just think it's stupid. But, there are a lot of things about the people who get paid for their opinions that I find stupid.

[mcgwirecom]

I agree with your opinion on the season passes. It is true they were good for every game. But as someone who got to use a press pass in the 70's I have to say the pass itself was not a "ticket". We had to go to the ticket window or press window and they would still give us an actual ticket to get into the game. You still need an actual seat number so you still need a ticket. As far as I know you need to do this with every kind of pass. If you could actually get in with the pass where are you legally allowed to sit?

[Duluth Eskimo]

It was the 31st. I attended the game. You can find an authentic ticket fairly easily so not sure why you'd get one of those passes. I think the season passes are stupid too. BTW, it was a fantastic game and was well worth my trip to see it. Got lucky on that one.

[certainteed52]

Durwood Merrill died on 1/11/2003 he has 13 years to correct this ball he has in his collection so that make me think that something must have happened for him to keep it in his collection!

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by certainteed52

Durwood Merrill died on 1/11/2003 he has 13 years to correct this ball he has in his collection so that make me think that something must have happened for him to keep it in his collection!

I'll bet he didn't even know about the mistake.

As somebody who sometimes spends months in a row on tour, I can completely see where those involved were wrong about the date when it happened.

When you spend that much time traveling from city to city, it's easy to forget the exact date and the exact day.

Doug

[Scott Garner]

Hi Certainteed52,

Welcome to net54!
As many on net54 know, I have been an advanced collector of Nolan Ryan since 1972.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Durwood Merrill sold many balls surrounding the months prior to his death that several people in the hobby, including myself, question as being authentic.

The inaccurate date in the inscription on the ball is one issue, which as Doug Goodman mentioned, probably was simply a matter of Merrill forgetting to write the correct date.

More important is the fact that Durwood Merrill did not work in the umpire crew during Nolan Ryan's 300th win game on July 31, 1990.
FYI, the umpire crew that night were Al Clark (who went to prison for selling fake balls to this game, Roger Clemens' 20 K game in 1986 and Cal Ripken's 2131 game), John Hirschbeck, Rocky Roe and Dave Philllips.

I recall an auction that Mike Gutierrez had during the time prior to Merrill's death in 2003 that featured many balls that Merrill claimed were game used balls related to many historic baseball games including stating that some were home run balls. I wondered how an umpire could come to own homerun balls from a game? To Mike G.'s credit, he was forthcoming and did provide Durwood Merrill's home phone number in TX to me and former baseball hobbiest and current composer/author Seth Swirsky. Merrill was affable and claimed that all of these balls were "gifted" to him while he was an AL umpire.

If you take everyone's word at face value, that's fine, but as an excellent rule of thumb, common sense and caution should be used when considering authenticity and provenance.... Just sayin'

[packs]

Kinda strange the inscription and auto aren't in the same pen.