Insider report suggests MLB used special baseballs in 2022

A report by Insider has suggested that MLB used a third type of baseball during the 2022 season despite having claimed a year earlier that the league used only two different balls.

Insider and Dr. Meredith Wills, a Society for American Baseball Research astrophysicist, conducted an investigation where they discovered that 36 out of 204 balls used during the 2022 season were different from the usual ball used in MLB games.

These “Goldilocks balls,” as Wills calls them, have a minor difference from the “dead” and “juiced” balls used throughout the 2021 season. Wills suggested the Goldilocks ball is 1.5 grams lighter than the light baseball and one gram heavier than the heavy one.

Insider’s Scott Davis reported that Goldilocks balls had existed in the All-Star Game, the Home Run Derby, the postseason, the World Series, the Texas Rangers’ 50th-anniversary game and some regular season games featuring the New York Yankees. The ones found in the Rangers’ game had commemorative stamps on the outer leather, whereas those found in the Yankees’ games did not.

The baseball has been a controversial subject in MLB for years, with several players and coaches noticing differences in those used in some games.

In 2017, Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander noticed the balls used at the World Series were slicker than usual. Verlander reportedly approached an MLB official on the field and asked if the league was going to “fix the baseballs.”

In April, New York Mets pitcher Chris Bassitt said in an interview that the MLB had a problem with baseballs. He claimed the balls were all “different” between innings throughout a game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

“They’re all different. The first inning they’re decent; the third inning they’re bad; the fourth inning they’re okay; the fifth inning they’re bad…there’s no common ground with the balls,” Bassitt said.