When the stakes are lower than Judge’s home run binge, a ball taken out of play and authenticated in the third inning of a normal game can often be purchased at the team store by the seventh. “You have to pay very careful attention.” “You watch the game in a completely different way as an authenticator,” Vanson said Saturday. The ball that comes out of play is tossed to Vanson, who applies a hologram sticker and records exactly when it was used before putting it in a bag. Now his precinct is a camera well next to the Mets’ dugout. Vanson spent most of his 25-year career at the 108th Precinct in Long Island City, Queens. When a ball is taken out of play, it goes to an authenticator, like Billy Vanson, another retired New York City police officer, who worked Saturday’s Mets-Pirates game at Citi Field. Typically, two authenticators take up positions, one next to each dugout at every ballpark for every game. The system relies on roughly 230 former law enforcement officers, hologram stickers and a chain of custody that might stand up to the most skeptical criminal court judge. If someone looks to sell that spray can today, it better have the special sticker as proof, or the F.B.I. “It sat on my desk for years,” Posner said, “but then it disappeared.” But the current system is the gold standard for authentication.” “Before the program existed, we used other methods. “It has lent a greater degree of confidence that the artifact is what it is supposed to be,” said Josh Rawitch, the president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. In other cases, an authenticated item marking, say, a first career hit, a 20th win or a no-hitter could sit on a player’s mantel at home or in a glass case at the Baseball Hall of Fame. to begin its authentication unit so that teams and players could verify their memorabilia and in some cases turn them into a solid amount of cash - at least some of which is used to support charities. The investigation resulted in dozens of convictions and prompted M.L.B. investigation, Operation Bullpen, which determined that roughly three-quarters of all autographs on the market were fake. Gwynn, who could spot a counterfeit autograph as quickly as a hanging slider, noticed in the late 1990s that some items purported to be signed by him were forgeries. M.L.B.’s authentication squad was established after a widespread racket of phony autographs and memorabilia was uncovered with the help of Tony Gwynn, a Hall of Fame outfielder for the San Diego Padres. “There was a time when players didn’t really understand the program,” Pecorale said. Pecorale, a former New York City police officer whose first time authenticating at Yankee Stadium was in 2011 when Derek Jeter collected his 3,000th hit, had one assignment on Tuesday: Judge. has assigned an extra authenticator to shadow Judge and Pujols. In addition to the secret markings on the balls, M.L.B. It just cranks into overdrive when a major record or milestone is within reach. It is in operation at every major league game, and has been for two decades. The basic program, in which former law enforcement officers witness game-used items as they come off the field and affix a coded hologram sticker to them, is not just for record-setting events. “How often does a player hit 700 home runs or set the American League home run record, passing the greats of Ruth and Maris?” “It allows us to verify some of the biggest moments in baseball history,” said Michael Posner, M.L.B.’s senior director for authentication and e-commerce. officials have attached the same kind of covert marking to every ball that will be pitched to him for the rest of the season to ensure that no nefarious actors can falsely claim they have a milestone-setting ball. Louis Cardinals slugger who has 698 career home runs.
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