It’s less than a month until Major League Baseball Opening Day. Spring training is in full swing and we’re getting closer to the 2026 MLB baseball season. As we wait out one more huge snowstorm in the Northeast, it feels like a good time to reminisce.
There were many amazing Museum of Baseball additions in 2025. Since we rarely promote older baseballs in new posts on the site, many visitors miss our most amazing finds. They’re always available on OfficialGameBalls.com, but they’re buried in the image galleries of our Museum. So here’s an opportunity to display some special finds on the main page. This should also help get these rare pieces on collectors’ radars.
Let’s start with the modern official commemorative logo MLB balls, then we’ll share some rare vintage prototypes. Later, in a follow-up post, we’ll cycle through the rest of our pre-2025 MLB additions, and eventually share the best discoveries from professional baseball leagues around the world.
Rawlings Modern MLB Prototypes, Test Prints and Samples
There are some amazing finds here. A few might be one-of-a-kind or at least extremely rare examples. Let’s discuss a few favorites. First off… that 2000s Jackie Robinson Day Selig ball… We’ve never seen it before! Certainly those weren’t used in MLB games… were they?
Nope, it’s a prototype. You have to wonder which season that was made for? Was it an option for the 2005 or 2007 official Jackie Robinson Day game ball? Or is it the infamous phantom 2010 edition that we once thought was a lock, but never happened? Last random thought: it very well could have been a prototype for an annual JRD game ball, to be used every season on April 15th! No year stamp would have been needed, so this is plausible. Jackie Robinson Day deserves to have a league-wide, annual, official on-field ROMLB game ball every season.
Another standout: the Rawlings 2015 Home Run Derby Magenta Prototype. I’ve written more extensively about it in the Museum of Baseballs’ MLB HR Derby Gallery. Pictured above for comparison are the 2015 HR Derby white ball, which was used in the event, and the 2015 HRD Gold “bonus ball” which was actually canceled and went unused. They share the same logo as our 2015 magenta prototype… but we still feel it’s a 2016 prototype. The official on-field 2016 HRD magenta ball is pictured on the right. Perhaps Rawlings and MLB simply began testing magenta dyed leather before they had a 2016 logo finalized, so they just went with the previous season’s HR Derby logo?
- Rounding out the rest of that gallery: The Griffey number retirement is cool, but very little changed from the final approved logo.
- The Detroit Tigers 1984 World Series Champs trophy design is far better than the tiny logo they chose to use for the real live game balls.
- The 2011 Rawlings Gold Glove Award ball is the same as the official 2011 GGA Winner commemorative, except its an ROMLB blank without the side panel winners’ list stamps.
- 2022 Gold Glove Award is nearly identical to the common approved version. Can you spot the difference(s)?
- And all the rest are logo variants for tests or samples, if I’m not mistaken. So if you could snag only one of these, which would you want? Leave a comment!
Next up… Presenting, the rarest, most unusual 2025 additions to the Museum of baseballs:
Goodness Gracious! What have we here?! American and National League prototypes!
Vintage game ball collectors will no doubt recognize these gems. First, a Spalding 5X Center baseball:
Multicolor laced in red and blue! These 5X balls are a category of prototypes unto themselves. And they’re real, actual prototypes. Prototypes that present a genuine material or construction change and not just insignificant logo size changes.
If you don’t want to dig into that old article, here’s the gist of it: The Spalding 5X Center refers to an experiment in the Major Leagues in the early 1970s—experimental baseballs with a livelier center. They were banned after test trials in MLB spring training games.
AL President Joe Cronin, whose stamp appears on the ball, referred to the 5x derisively as MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn’s “little experiment,” and said, “I’ve seen enough of it. It should be outlawed.”
— Joe Cronin
— Official Game Balls
And the infamous Orange American League baseball, a Spalding Lee MacPhail AL Baseball:
This blindingly bright, nuclear orange beauty? Everyone knows the Charlie O’Finley official orange baseball experiment, right?
These 1970s Orange Spalding American League MacPhail and Joe Cronin officially stamped baseballs were a result of those infamous O’Finley official orange leather baseballs.
What had started as a gimmick in the eyes of most league officials turned into a real MLB trial run for orange baseballs, possibly also considered for night game balls!
These official league-stamped versions are always a treat to see and quite tough to find. There’s at least one other officially stamped example of MLB AL official orange game balls: the Reach-made Cronins. That would have been our most valuable pickup last year, if not for one of these next two prototypes which are even scarcer…
These baseballs will be a novel discovery for many, even for some vintage baseball gurus. It may be tough to tell from our images, but these two fluorescent yellow Rawlings MLB American League Bobby Brown baseballs? Well, they’re fluorescent yellow. That’s crazy!
Looks close. These two are “game-used,” or field-tested might be a better description. As the original auction listing states: “Major League Baseball experimented with switching to these neon yellow baseballs to be used during night games.” These were used in tests at the Metrodome in Minnesota by Major League Baseball. So that marks another night game ball trial run, though with far less fanfare than those brilliant orange Charlie Os. Yellow baseballs are far more rare and relatively unknown. We’ve seen one other variant with black laces.
Our good friend Eric, owner of EHA Collectibles, discovered these two unicorns at auction and was incredibly generous to give us first crack at the black-stamped ball. Now if we could only get that magnificent red ink version from him… Thank you, Eric!
We’ve got another half a dozen or so sample/test print/prototype/misprint baseballs to share. Here are more modern prototypes and a few older, nearly vintage. These are all more accurately called samples, test prints, and maybe a few true misprints. I’ll be briefer with their descriptions since there’s less to discuss, but they’re all cool and worth discovering nonetheless.
Rawlings MLB Prototypes, Test Prints, Samples and Errors
- These 1979 & 1980 Rawlings ASG and World Series samples have 1981 1-Dot Haiti Rawlings stamps. They were probably printed in 1981; perhaps they forgot to swap out the Rawlings logo plate used for AL and NL balls?
- The 1994 World Series sample or test print is just ugly. Not because of the multicolor commemorative logo stamp. It’s just sloppy work, and it’s a bit roughed up and toned. It’s got a Haiti hand-stamp on the sweetspot too. Did unstamped game balls survive the move to Costa Rica from the late 1980s? Or were baseballs still being stitched in Haiti into the mid-90s?
- Next, a Rawlings 1997 MLB ASG ball that’s missing the Selig commissioner signature—perhaps a first run edition? Bud Selig officially had the interim, “acting” commissioner tag removed and he became the official MLB commissioner on July 9, 1998. The Bud H. Selig signature and “Office of the Commissioner” stamp appear on the common 1997 ASG ball used in the game. I have not seen another example of this ’97 without the signature. Nice! Not thrilling, but nice.
- Row two begins with a true whoopsie-doodle: a Rawlings 1998 World Series ball in blue ink. It’s supposed to be red. Maybe a failed reprint. I’ve seen 2-3 of these.
- Next, a 2000 ASG-World Series disaster… or is it beautiful because it’s so odd? That’s probably just the result of some Rawlings folks experimenting with logo stamps. I have 3 of these by the way.
- We wrap it up with a few 2001 test prints: a 2001 Pittsburgh Pirates PNC Park prototype (no date, slightly larger logo) and 2001 MLB World Series prototype (likely the Ceremonial 1st Pitch Test print before the text was added). I’ve seen 3–5 of that American flag sample, but that is the only PNC park prototype I’ve seen for 2001, and I feel lucky to find it as that’s my home ballpark!
There are many more amazing additions to share in part 2, coming soon! I’ve got a handful of rare MLB game balls left to post, mostly retail versions and some oddball exhibition game balls. Then, we’ll get into the wild world of professional foreign league commemorative official game balls. Stay tuned, and sign up to our email list below so you don’t miss out!
