Museum: MLB All-Star Game. The Mid-Summer Classic: home of glorious multi-colored stitching! Here we’ll find Major League Baseball’s most colorful modern game balls. Every official MLB All-Star baseball used in the Bigs is pictured, from 1979 – 2024.
Reprinted versions of older ASG balls have been made in recent years, allegedly beginning in 2009. When the original ASG and WS event ball were first produced, they also saw multiple years of print runs – sometimes with minor variances to stamping (such as a missing Haiti stamp on the sweet spot). When possible, we’ll showcase both the original on-field game ball alongside the modern reprint counterpart.
The most notable differences between reprints and originals, aside from aging or toning of the leather, is the country of origin stamp, or lack the of these stamps on both early and current reprints. The earliest iterations of the All-Star Game balls contain a Haiti hand stamp on the reverse sweet spot. A few from the mid-80s have the “Haiti” text moved to the front top panel, as part of the Rawlings logo stamp.
Several seasons’ baseballs feature a Costa Rica hand stamp, also typically on the sweet spot or just at the edge of the seam near the sweet spot. Worth noting, a few NL/AL and on-field commemoratives have “Costa Rica as part of the Rawlings logo too. Rawlings opened its Costa Rica factory in 1987, but the company did not fully discontinue its Haiti operations until the early 1990s. So, collectors can find MLB baseballs from the same events with either a Costa Rica or Haiti stamp from about 1987 to 1992, and some with no stamp at all.
Sometime in 1993, Rawlings stopped placing country of origin stamps on baseballs. Companies were no longer legally required to do so for certain products, likely because the boxes in which they are packaged already display a country of origin stamp.
