I returned to my California home yesterday from my trip to Pittsburgh and found a sack of rocks waiting for me in my mailbox. Under most circumstances, this would be cause for concern, but let it be known that this sack wound up here intentionally.

Before embarking on my first trip to the East Coast in almost a decade, last week I struck a pretty neat deal for a pair of game-used items from Cleveland Indians games. One was a ball struck as a single by 2018 MVP candidate Jose Ramirez, the other was an MLB authenticated Game-Used rosin bag from the June 13, 2017, battle between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cleveland Indians. The pitching match-up for the day? Just Trevor Bauer versus future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw.

I wouldn’t say that I forgot about this purchase, but I was dumbfounded for a second when I grabbed the bubble mailer and felt what literally felt like a sack of rocks. Then when I opened the package I got a smile on my face.

I own more than a half-dozen baseballs thrown by Clayton Kershaw, my favorite active player. Among them are two that were used during his 2015 NL West clinching 13-strikeout, 1-hit performance against the San Francisco Giants, a game in which I attended. Also, I own the first ball thrown by Kershaw against the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2018 NLCS Game 5. There are a few other balls in the collection including ones he threw against Oakland in 2018 when I again saw him live, one fouled off by fellow 2006 first-round pick Evan Longoria in 2018, and another fouled off by Giants catcher Buster Posey in 2015. But in terms of other game-used items, I’d never even seen a rosin bag like this for sale so it was a must-own when it popped up.

The seller accepted offers and after a bit of back and forth we were able to negotiate a price that would end up with me owning this often forgotten piece of baseball memorabilia.

We all know about balls, bats, helmets, cleats and jerseys being collected. But rosin bags? Do people collect those? I know I have seen other rosin bags for sale on eBay and other sites, but I never really thought I’d end up buying one. But in this case, this seemed like a no-brainer, even if the MLB attribution does not specifically mentioned any players. And the bag itself does not have any pine tar on the exterior so it is unlikely to be from the on deck circle. The bag is full, the exterior is caked in powder and dirt that appears to be from the pitchers mound.

This was a battle between two big name, big league pitchers and in the end my guy, Kershaw, wound up with his 135th career victory after throwing 7 innings and striking out 4 Indians batters.

The item was shipped to me in an Indians Team Store bag and left me wondering just how I was going to display it. I thought about purchasing a plastic case like the ones used for Beanie Babies, but found a 200-count two-piece plastic box in my stash of supplies and that seems to be working just fine.

My next step is trying to find a screen shot showing Kershaw, Bauer and others handling the bag.

This entry was posted on June 4, 2019 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Collecting Kershaw with tags baseball, Clayton Kershaw, game-used, MLB Authentication, rosin bag, sports, Trevor Bauer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.