Help solve the great baseball mystery

[Splinte1941]

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?

[Scott Garner]

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.

[cardsfan22]

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.

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