Braves 150th, Angels 60th, Salt River Fields 10th Anniversary Balls revealed!

Earlier today renders for the first three commemorative baseballs of 2021 were released! The Braves 150th and Angels 60th anniversary baseballs were expected, but the Salt River Fields 10th anniversary baseball came as a little bit of a surprise, especially since it was announced that there would be no standard spring training commemoratives.

As a preface, all three of these logos appear to be a bit small in the renderings provided, but I would expect them to be slightly larger, since we saw the 2020 commemoratives gain a bit of logo size vs recent years. I will also as always update this post with non-render in the flesh photos of the balls as soon as I get them (please contact me if you have these photos already!)

What can I say, this ball simply looks great. It uses the same typography on the last two commemorative baseballs Salt River Fields had, and that same great D-Backs snake combined with the Rockies mountain logo. It’s nice that it has the years as well.

The Rockies confirmed to me that this ball will be used for all Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks home games played at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick this spring. This is the 3rd commemorative baseball to feature Salt River Fields, a record for any ballpark.

The same logo that the Braves previously announced would be on their uniforms for the 2021 season will also be on their baseballs for the 2021 season. The Braves are likely to use this ball for all of their home games in 2021. This is the first Braves team anniversary logo they have ever had on a baseball.

Overall, this logo is very bland. The Braves “A” logo is seen extremely small at the bottom in a home plate diamond, and there is an older style “Braves” typography at the top. There is also a very small “B” and “M” to the left and right of the “150” respectively representing the logos of the former Boston Braves and former Milwaukee Braves. Lastly, there are the years 1871 and 2021. It could have been done a lot better, but currently the Braves are attempting to not use the tomahawk or any other potentially insensitive imagery.

Last but certainly not least, we have the Angels 60th Anniversary logo. I had to save the best for last. The Angels previously announced they would be wearing this logo as a sleeve patch, and now we have it on the ball! This is the one a lot of collectors were waiting for, I’m sure we’ll see Mike Trout being used to sign this ball a lot in the future. The Angels are likely to use this ball for all of their home games in 2021. This is the Angels 2nd anniversary ball that they have done. They also had a 50th Anniversary in 2011.

Look at this logo. Absolutely well done. Slightly different than their 50th Anniversary logo which featured the words “Angels Baseball” and “50th Anniversary”, This ball has no wordmarks at all. It does take the same font used for the “50” in their 50th anniversary baseball. That is the same font they use for their uniform numbers. A very nice touch. I love the halo above the number, and the Angels logo in a fairly large size above that. It features the years 1961 and 2021. The thing I love most is the diamond at the bottom. The 60th anniversary in general is often referred to as the diamond anniversary. The Angels capitalized on this with a very nice diamond at the bottom of the logo. My only concern is the printing on the edges of the square of the logo will be sloppy because of the very thin lines. We have seen thin lines be an issue for Rawlings in the past on logo balls, such as the pinstripes on the Mariano Rivera retirement ball.

Overall, a nice set of 3 baseballs to open up our 2021 commemorative slate! I am personally excited for the Braves and Angels and to hopefully have a chance to snag them. The Salt River Fields ball may be a toughie for ballhawks and fans to grab in game used form, but we’ll just have to see!

You can purchase the Angels 60th ball here, on eBay, the Braves 150th ball here, on eBay, and the Salt River Fields 10th ball here, on eBay.

I will be posting soon the full 2021 commemorative baseball preview, with these balls, and more expected baseballs for this season. As always, thank you for reading, and you can always contact me via my email ericabneri@hallofcommemoratives.com if you have any questions, comments, or just want to chat!