I have a difficult relationship with the Seattle Mariners – which aligns me with a lot of people who identify themselves with being a fan of that team – which I do not. However, I’m a resident of the Pacific Northwest and a massive baseball fan who has generally believed what’s good for the Mariners is good for baseball in the northwest as a whole, and in turn, good for the prospect of MLB in Portland. As such, although I root for the Oakland A’s, I’ve seen far more mariners games in person than any other team, and I want them to do well – just maybe not as well as the A’s. This is actually a pretty charitable position to take, considering I have vivid memories of the abuse (and chunks of ice) hucked in my general direction as a child rooting for the A’s in the Kingdome.
This is all a preface to saying although I am an avowed A’s fan, I have an affinity for certain Seattle Mariners teams – 1995 and 2001 in particular – and I collect, at least passively, a number of the players from those teams. Ken Griffey Jr, Randy Johnson, Tino Martinez, Jay Buhner, A-Rod, Bill Krueger, Ichiro, and Edgar Martinez all count as players whose cards I set aside within my collection, and whose memorabilia I’ll at least consider picking up if its interesting (or cheap) enough.
One such instance occurred last week when I found an unidentified four-ball lot of autographed baseballs for a very affordable buy it now price on the Goodwill auction site.
As recently as a year and a half ago I’d routinely find amazing things at my local Goodwill – mostly sports cards (I’ll highlight a few standouts here in the future) but an assortment of autographed balls as well. I’ve built a pretty strong collection of signed balls, all of which I’ve picked up for a few bucks apiece – these include Hank Aaron, Frank Thomas, Rickey Henderson, George Brett, Rollie Fingers a Ralph Branca/Bobby Thomson dual ball, Derek Jeter (although I have doubts about its authenticity), and many other less illustrious players – purchased mostly because they were there. And besides, any official baseball is worth buying for a buck or two – I mean, at the very least you can play catch with it.
The Goodwill finds have dried up at my local location since the onset of the pandemic, and even the gradual re-opening of the state hasn’t changed my fortunes at thrift stores of late. Thus the auction website. I instantly identified one signature as Edgar Martinez – which for the list price, was worth the money alone. Two of the balls were what looked like early 90s-era PCL game balls, and the other was a little league branded ball signed in Sharpie.
When the package arrived last week, I saw that it was a July 4, 2001 commemorative ball signed by Jeff Nelson, Jay Buhner, Edgar, and another as yet unidentified Mariner (a real sloppy Bret Boone? Not sure…). So I was at least 2/4 on PC guys with that ball – the fact that a Hall of Famer is on it outweighs the fact that the Buhner signature is personalized – which I’d normally avoid. What’s great though is that this ball – if the commemorative logo is to be believed – is from the Mariners’ historic (and historically underachieving) 2001 team. Too bad their rookie right fielder didn’t sign this one. History tells me the Mariners played the Rangers in Arlington on July 4, 2001 – did this ball find its way home from Texas back then, or was this batting practice fodder? My money’s on BP, I think.
The PCL balls actually appear to both feature the same team, which looks to be an early 90s iteration of the Tacoma Tigers. The outlier on both balls is Alan Cockrell, who didn’t play for the Tigers – although he was in the PCL in the early 90s. I’d also recognized Kevin Campbell, Weston Weber, and Mike Raczka, all of whom were Tacoma Tigers. I’ll likely make a page here in the near future to show the unidentified baseballs on the off chance that someone on the web might know who signed a few of the random balls I have.
One of those will now be the completely unidentifiable (for me anyway) MacGregor “little league” ball that was the fourth in the lot I picked up.
I’d guess it’s another minor league team, or even a college wood bat team or something – it has five signatures, all in Sharpie, one identified with a jersey number that looks to be #57.
JW? 
Is this one Mike Pompeo? Plus #57? 
Mark H-Man?
Do YOU know who signed this ball?