As many of you know, I collect game used commemorative baseballs, as well as baseballs from all kinds of leagues. In all honestly, It is way more fun to me to snag one than to buy, so that is what I am usually interested in. This November, I had an offseason chance to snag something super unique!
Sometime in 2023, we heard an announcement that the two major LIDOM teams (the Dominican Professional Baseball League) of Águilas Cibaeñas and Tigres del Licey would be playing at Citi Field in November. With this, I instantly knew I wanted to go and snag a LIDOM baseball! But before I get into that, here’s a little recap of just a few unique snagging adventures I had this season.
In 2023 I had a few interesting snags that added to my leagues and events total, starting in spring training when I was snagging out in Arizona. One day at Salt River Fields I was walking around and happened to stumble upon a KBO Baseball! This had me super excited, especially since I knew the KBO teams had left AZ for the season already. Bit beat up, but another league added to the pile.
Also on that trip, I went to the 1st Team USA WBC game, but came up empty handed 2023 WBC Baseball wise. I did end up snagging a normal MLB baseball.
In June, I travelled down to Miami to attempt to snag one of the Marlins Friday only 30th Anniversary baseballs, and after an entire game of struggle, I got one at the last moment from the umpire. Here’s some pics from that (peep the umpire fit).
Fast forward to August, and we had the first Home Run Derby X event in the United States. I wrote a little about this in my season preview post, and I would be happy to make a full length article if there is interest, but to make a long story short, I snagged a bunch of unique HRD X baseballs as well as one of the orange moneyballs, which is one of my favorite things I’ve ever snagged!
In September, I travelled to Japan, and attended 4 games there. The second of which was in Kobe, at Hotto Motto Stadium (yes, that is a real name!). I was the first fan in the seats, and quickly was able to snag two of these really cool Orix Buffaloes logo baseballs they used in BP, one being on the fly! Sadly, the NPB does not allow fans to keep baseballs, so I was quickly hounded to give these back.
Wish I could have kept one. However… they DO allow you to keep a ball thrown by a player. So I got to the Tokyo Dome early for a Tokyo Giants v Chunichi Dragons game, and got to work. I saw Raimel Martinez warming with Michael Perez, and concocted a plan. When Martinez finished throwing, I hit the Cuban born player with a bit of Spanish: Dame la pelota por favor!? He heard that, and turned around absolutely befuddled, and tossed me the ball, then proceeded to tell his teammates about it.
Quickly, security approached to start trying to get me to give them the ball back, and I had to whip out google translate to explain. This was further complicated when Raimel asked for the ball back to sign it. I did not even have a pen! He took the ball, signed it, gave it to Michael Perez to sign, and then got young star Hiroto Takahashi to sign it as well. I proceeded to have to try to convince security to let me keep the ball again, and they were quite unhappy! Here is the extremely faded Mizuno NPB ball:
Now for the main event, what you all have been waiting for, and the reason I originally made this post! Fast forward to mid November. I am rushing into the seats at Citi Field as the first fan in for batting practice, only to find out that Licey are using trashy official league baseballs, pictured below.
Gross! I was not feeling it, and laid off. I did find an MLB ball in center field presumably from Aguilas BP. At this point, I just wanted a LIDOM ball, and figured the bullpen would be the best bet. As the starting pitcher was warming up for Licey, It came to my attention that there were in fact extremely extremely cool commemorative LIDOM baseballs being used. I was shocked, and super pumped. I had to get one. So after a shutout at the bullpen, I was playing both dugouts for third out balls, until this one made its way to me in the third inning!
Man, what a gorgeous logo. My god. This is easily one of my favorite baseballs I have ever snagged! First of all, to note that crowded sweetspot of text is a little comical, super unique. The logo itself is a great one, it’s got the Citi Field wordmark, the “Titanes Del Caribe” moniker for the series, the year, and best of all, the whole logo is a mix of the Mets logo with the skyline and bridge, a baseball at the bottom and it is HUGE!
Plus, for fun, here’s a few photo of my full display case set up, this is just commemorative baseballs and league baseballs that I have snagged, as well as a few personal milestones in there. Soon I am going to switch to using these gorgeous cases from Fanatics (which happen to be on sale right now as well). But for the mean time, I use this one from SF Displays on eBay. The cubes on top are these Ultra Pro cubes if you were curious, and I like the way they stack neatly..
Let me know if you enjoyed this more personal post, I would write more about my adventures if it is well recieved.
What a fun way to wrap up 2023. I am still working on sorting out all those baseballs I purchased and hope to have a better way to sell them on this site soon. Big things should be coming here, I plan to revamp everything and potentially bring some new folks in to help. As always, feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected], follow me on Twitter/X @TheFrownyFace and stay well! The 2024 MLB season will be here before we all know it, and our first commemorative is less than 4 months away!