Authentic Finds

First off, Sports Authority's clearance sale is now 30%-50% off. I believe it would be a good time to buy licensed merchandise because there is still a good selection of merchandise available. I went yesterday and there weren't any Angels jerseys left. There were still plenty of Ducks, Dodgers, and Chargers licensed gear available.

There are bids to buy some of the stores. We'll see what happens.




I was bored last week and I was surfing on MLB.com. (Does anyone use surfing on the web anymore?) If you click on the Shop menu, the first thing that pops up is the Authentication tab.

If you buy game issued or used goods, MLB may have authenticated it. MLB places hologram tags on items and I never paid attention to them. So I went through my goods to see what their database said about my goods.

A few months ago, I bought game used Padres baseballs through Fanatics and their website wasn't very descriptive with the balls.

One of them was used on August 13, 2014 when Colorado visited San Diego. Justin Morneau was thrown a pitch in the dirt by Ian Kennedy at top of the 5th.

The second one was used April 17, 2014 when when Colorado visited San Diego. Justin Morneau was thrown a pitch in the dirt by Ian Kennedy at top of the 7th.

What were the chances I was going to get two balls thrown by the same pitcher to the same batter? I don't know. I'm not a statistician and I don't know how many different kinds of baseballs they have in their warehouse.


A few years ago, I bought a Mike Zagurski game issued jersey off of eBay. It has a hologram on it. What does MLB say about it?

TEAM ISSUED JERSEY
PIRATES CLUB AUTHENTICATION
Session Date: October 28, 2013
2013 GRAY ROAD JERSEY #52 MIKE ZAGURSKI

The eBay seller sold a legit item.

The jersey I bought from Steiner Sports says:

HOME BATTING PRACTICE TOP
NEW YORK YANKEES AUTHENTICATION Session Date: October 15, 2013
Additional Information: #67

It doesn't have his name listed in the database but Steiner Sports is legitimate seller, so I trust them that this was team issued to Mike Zagurski.



I bought a couple of jerseys from the Colorado Rockies and Oakland A's through MLB Auctions site:

GAME-USED JERSEY.
Session Name: ATL AT COL
Session Date: July 11, 2015
Additional Information: CAMO JERSEY - #27 - TYLER CHATWOOD

TEAM ISSUED JERSEY:
OAKLAND AS END OF SEASON AUTHENTICATION
Session Date: Nov 20, 2015
Additional Information: OAKLAND ATHLETICS SMITH  TEAM ISSUED JERSEY

And finally, the jerseys I bought from the Angels:
 TEAM ISSUED JERSEY
Session Name: BAL AT LAA
Session Date: July 23, 2014
Additional Information: HANK CONGER #16

And....

There's nothing on the seal for my LaTroy Hawkins jersey. I think it might have been washed once since I owned it. I decided to email MLB and ask if they could help find it in their database. After a series of emails, they found where it came from:

TEAM ISSUED JERSEY
Session Date: October 18, 2012
Additional Information: LATROY HAWKINS

MLB offered to replace the seal.

I hope this was somewhat informative. I find it interesting that not everything offered for sale through the teams is authenticated. None of my Padres jerseys had a seal on them.