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| | 2008 ALL-STAR GAME | | |  Marathon game: AL extends NL's misery with 15-inning win | Box score: American League 4, National League 3 (15 inn.) | Photo gallery: All-Star action | | | | |  Home Run Derby: Hamilton puts on show; Morneau wins | Futures Game: World pitchers shut down U.S. in 3-0 victory | Mid$ummer Classic: Going to game a pricey proposition | Rosters: AL, NL starters and reserves | | | | |  Video blog: Devin Clancy takes you with him on his All-Star travels | | | | |  Interactive map: New York's many historic baseball locations | | | | |  Yankee Stadium: Tribute to the 'House that Ruth Built' | Graphic: Stadium's evolution | Sports Weekly: Order your 88-page keepsake edition |
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By Mike Dodd, USA TODAY
NEW YORK —
As Josh Hamilton and friends were racking up tape-measure homers around Yankee Stadium in the Home Run Derby on Monday night, three men were standing behind a protective screen in short center field doing a different kind of accounting.
They were Major League Baseball authenticators, tagging and documenting every event-used ball thrown into them for a soon-to-be piece of history. "They're coming like machine guns out there," said MLB's Michael Posner, in the stadium groundskeeper's room between rounds.
Nine MLB authenticators and two supervisors were expected to register about 1,800 items ranging from autographs to game-used bases over the three days at the All-Star Fan Fest and Yankee Stadium this week.
They are part of a program that has authenticated more than 2 million items since it was created in 2001, Colin Hagen, vice president of licensing for MLB Properties, said.
MLB now has an authenticator at each of its 2,430 regular-season games to witness and document the validity of game-used items and autographs, sticking a high-tech hologram on each. Its corps of 125 authenticators have law enforcement backgrounds and are vetted through the same process used for event security.
HRs, foul balls 'are great souvenir'
The program has two main purposes: to provide MLB and its teams with high-quality memorabilia for business and community-relations use and to insure the integrity of items in a sports collectibles industry rife with forgeries.
Fans and collectors are still on their own with any home run or foul ball hit into the stands, both in the regular season and at major events such as the All-Star Game. "It's not marked and not authenticated. … It's just a great souvenir for a fan," Hagen said.
For landmark hits like Ken Griffey Jr.'s 600th home run, the umpires are given a specially coded ball when the historic hitter comes to bat. Routinely, though, the balls are tagged after they are taken out of play, often by the umpire because of scuffs.
Monday night's Home Run Derby provided a glimpse of the operation. Three authenticators were assigned to Fan Fest to witness autograph signings, while six others and MLB supervisors Posner and Howard Shelton worked the stadium.
In mid-afternoon, several were stationed in an autograph room witnessing the All-Stars sign more than 375 baseballs. During the Derby, they spread out to tag balls on the field (and those hit over the fence in the non-seating areas), home plate and bases as they came off the field.
The bases were replaced and tagged with holograms three times during the Derby; every inning during Tuesday's main event. One of Monday's bases was up for auction on the MLB.com website by Tuesday.
After the Derby, the crew went to the clubhouses to collect the jerseys, standing nearby as each player took off his uniform and handed it to a clubhouse attendant, who turned it over. Shelton got winner Justin Morneau to autograph the home plate used in the contest, and authenticator Wendell West put the hologram on it at the player's locker.
The half-inch long holograms, which come apart once they are removed from an item, are marked with a letter and number code that links to a detailed description of the item that will be posted on the MLB.com website.
Authenticators are told they must witness the event to document it. During games, they sit near the action, frequently in the photographer's well.
"We don't want there to be any question about the program," said authenticator Jim Welby, a police sergeant in St. Louis who works Cardinals games and was brought in for the All-Star Game. "We take great pride in what we do."
Probe resulted in program
Hagen said the program grew out of an FBI investigation of forgeries in the entertainment collectibles industry that concluded 75% of all memorabilia was fake.
"We recognized … we're losing that bond and trust with our fans if they're getting fake merchandise," he said. "We really needed to step up and develop something in this."
Items collected in regular-season games are kept by the teams for their use, while the All-Star and postseason game pieces are used by MLB for corporate/sponsor partnerships, charitable events, licensing partners like Locker Room Memorabilia and online auctions.
Welby said he typically collects between 20 and 30 items at each Cardinals game, including balls, the dugout lineup cards, broken bats and bases.
Twins catcher Joe Mauer noticed that the Minnesota crew makes a practice of tagging a new player's first major-league hit for the rookie. He has no complaints about their daily presence.
"They've been at every game for a few years (since 2003). I didn't even know that until last year," he said.
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