In search of the Kirk Gibson World Series home run ball

In Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Kirk Gibson hit an iconic walk-off home run to lift the Los Angeles Dodgers to victory over the Oakland Athletics. Hobbled by concurrent knee and hamstring injuries, Gibson seemed to be unavailable, only to pinch-hit and author one of the greatest moments in baseball history.

Until Gibson’s two-out blast, nobody had ever hit a game-winning World Series home run with their team trailing. The Dodgers’ eventual Fall Classic triumph, in five games, imbued Gibson’s stroke with near-mythical significance, and it has since been replayed and retold ad nauseam – in books, articles, documentaries and films.

Yet despite such impassioned scrutiny, nobody knows what happened to the actual baseball that Gibson hit over the right field wall at Dodger Stadium. Some have called it the most sacrosanct relic in Los Angeles sports history, but its fate – and, more pertinently, its location – is still a mystery, 36 years later. 

Plenty of journalists, fans, documentarians and internet sleuths have tried to find The Ball over many years, but it remains elusive. I wanted to change that, and spurred by my successful quest to find the long-lost ‘Reverse the Curse’ Boston street sign beloved by bygone Red Sox fans, I decided to give it a shot.

Of course, I entered the project fully aware of its absurdity. Attempting to find a singular baseball almost four decades after it was last seen, while living in England, over 5,000 miles removed from its only known sighting, is admittedly crazy. I did not expect to unearth anything new, given the unsurmountable odds at play, but I came closer to cracking the code than I ever imagined.

This is the story of how.

* * *

In the immediate aftermath of Gibson’s home run, most of the coverage quite rightly focused on the heroic act, rather than the propagating projectile. Indeed, the actual baseball itself did not earn published mention until spring training of 1989, when Jim Murray referenced it in a Los Angeles Times piece. “Gibson has the ball,” Murray wrote, and few gave it a second thought.

However, Gibson contradicted that report a few months later, saying he did not have the historic baseball. Quizzed by reporters, Gibson recalled receiving a letter from a female fan who claimed to have been hit by The Ball as it landed in the Dodger Stadium bleachers. She included a photo with her correspondence, showing a bruised upper leg, where the sacred sphere supposedly hit her. She did not come away with the baseball, as a melee ensued, and Gibson never heard anything else about its fate. 

Reading archived coverage, I was struck by the thinly-veiled sexism inherent in contemporaneous reporting that ‘a woman’ – unnamed, as if somehow unworthy – had been struck by the Gibson ball. Suitably perturbed, I became determined to track her down and tell her story. After all, along with Dennis Eckersley – the legendary Oakland reliever who served up Gibson’s blast – she is the only person whose contact with The Ball has ever been confirmed. She deserves to be heard and appreciated.

Amid a seemingly fruitless search, while mining through endless dead ends, I unearthed a tweet from October 2016, by Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post, linking to a piece in the same paper by Rudy Gersten. Steinberg’s tweet included a photo of a woman, in sunglasses and a red polo neck jumper, holding her skirt up slightly to reveal an impressive thigh bruise while holding a white t-shirt that said ‘Kirk Gibson ‘hit’ on me World Series Game 1 10/15/88.’ This, I learned, was The Woman – Pamela Guard, aunt of Rudy Gersten. And that was the photo she sent to Kirk Gibson all those years ago.

Sadly, the Washington Post is locked behind a paywall, so Pamela’s name, in connection with the Kirk Gibson home run, has never been freely available online – until now. I found Pamela on social media and, skimming through her posts, saw a few mentions of the Gibson ball. I messaged her but received no reply, then tried to get in touch via an art club to which she was connected. When those leads failed, I threw a Hail Mary by emailing a rather generic address listed on an abandoned Pamela Guard art page on Facebook. I expected my message to instantly bounce back as undelivered, but Pamela replied confirming I had the correct details and agreeing to provide further information.

In subsequent exchanges, Pamela explained that she is now 76 years old and lives in Arizona, having spent 25 years in New Zealand and Australia. Pamela gave me permission to re-share the famous photo she mailed to Gibson – snapped by Bridget Weber, her friend – and I include it below:

On the surface, this does not seem to prove much. After all, I cannot definitively proclaim this person as The Ball possessor. And even if I could, it does not really move the needle. We still do not know the true identity – name, age, backstory, current whereabouts – of that individual. I have merely favoured one bunch of blurry pixels over another. Big whoop.

However, finding other media – photos, videos, CCTV footage – of this person from Game 1 of the 1988 World Series may corroborate his identity and, ultimately, lead to a conversation confirming or denying his possible possession of the Gibson home run ball. Even this may sound farfetched, and it quite probably is, but in this endeavour, I draw inspiration from a compelling Netflix documentary that once captured my imagination.

Directed by Jacob LaMendola, Long Shot tells the story of Juan Catalan, a Dodgers fan accused of murder in 2003. Catalan was arrested and detained, but had a solid alibi: he was at a Dodgers game on the night in question. Facing an undefeated prosecutor, and without a ticket stub or anything to prove his presence at Dodger Stadium that evening, Catalan looked screwed – only for his defence team to discover that an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm was filmed at that very game. The relevance? Well, Larry David just happened to film a scene in the same section as Catalan, who was spotted on B-roll footage, subsequently used to secure his acquittal.

I have scoured most publicly available photos from Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, including these cool raw shots from a fan in the right field pavilion, but could not spot anyone who looked like the guy from my screenshot. I tried to track down Bob Smith, the Dodgers’ Director of Stadium Operations in 1988, to request any CCTV footage, but he passed away in 2017. I even reached out to Robert Sanchez, a famed vendor who has worked at Dodger Stadium since 1974, to see if he remembered anything about the bleacher crowd that night. Sanchez confirmed he worked that game, and that he patrolled the pavilion, but did not provide any further detail.

And so, I present a rather desperate call to action. If you attended Game 1 of the 1988 World Series and have any photographs or videos from inside Dodger Stadium – especially in the right field pavilion – I would be keen to see them. As with the Catalan case, even the most seemingly innocuous media can have tangential consequence in investigations like this, and the more unseen data we can liberate – the more photos, videos and reminiscence of the crowd we can gather – the greater our chances of identifying fans from the Gibson home run scrum. Your mementos may hold the key.

* * *

To date, the most substantive search for The Ball was conducted by sportswriter Darren Rovell, who wrote a series of articles about it for CNBC in 2010. When Gibson auctioned several items from his magnum opus – aside from the baseball – Rovell learned of its disappearance and issued an ‘all-points bulletin’ seeking information on its whereabouts. One week later, Rovell published an update, saying he had received 250 responses, including from 31 people who said they had the Gibson ball or knew who did.

The most substantive claim was made by Ed Moran, who provided a link to a rudimentary blog page – gatherspot.com – featuring an edited YouTube video of the Gibson home run alongside some explanatory text:

“First the video plays in real time. Then it plays a second time in slow motion. My uncle Carlos and my sister Jasmine are highlighted in the circle. The video is blurry up until the last few frames. You can see him wearing a black t-shirt and a gray zippered sweatshirt. I tried to guess and highlight the path the ball took. It helps when you know where it ended so my first idea was to find my uncle and sister in the video.

I spent many hours looking for them until I found them. If you really pay attention to the area where the crowd seemed to be converging, you know the ball had to be nearby. There are two men in particular that stand out. One is wearing white and the other one is wearing a green shirt. They are literally diving over people to get to that ball. And they are both getting closer to where my Uncle is. Slowing down the video really helps.”

Moran includes a photo of his uncle and sister towards the end of his blog post. Dated 15 October 1988 – the date of Gibson’s home run – the photo shows Jasmine holding a baseball emblazoned with the red World Series logo distinct to that year. “Here they are with the Kirk Gibson baseball,” reads a caption, followed by a further photo showing Carlos and Jasmine in 2008.

As detailed by Rovell, Carlos Moran was not a baseball fan. Indeed, Game 1 of the 1988 World Series was the first game he ever attended. Therefore, The Ball’s enchanted significance was apparently lost on Carlos, who claimed to have stuffed it in a sock drawer for a few years before giving it to a girlfriend. Perhaps more aware of its value, Carlos later spoke to that girlfriend – though they had long since parted – and she said The Ball was in her garage somewhere. Then, the trail went cold. 

“Having put out a worldwide all-points bulletin, I can tell you that this is the best evidence yet,” wrote Rovell, in conclusion. “They don’t have the stubs, but they have the ball and a dated photo. Is it possible to backdate a photo? Would someone buy a 1988 World Series ball and hold it up as if it was a prized possession if it really wasn’t? I doubt it. If it turns out to be a false lead, that’s ok. We’ve tried as hard as we could.”

I tried to reach Rovell, keen to learn more about his research and perhaps facilitate an interview with the Morans, but my queries went unanswered. Thankfully, one journalist steeped in Gibson ball lore did reply: David Davis, who penned a poignant piece about the artefact for SB Nation in June 2013. Davis also tried to track down The Ball, and managed to interview Dodgers historian Mark Langill and Ed Moran himself. Davis reported that Ed rang his uncle’s former girlfriend and inquired about the baseball. Again, she said it was in her garage and she would call Ed when she found it. Alas, the phone never rang.

Davis told me he had numerous conversations about The Ball after his article was published, but nothing substantial ever surfaced. He did not have any live leads I could pursue, nor did he have up-to-date contact details for the Morans. Indeed, the Morans proved elusive throughout my research, and as yet, I have not managed to speak with any member of the family.

As time wore on, however, the Morans’ relevance dwindled in my estimation. For one, even if Carlos Moran did bring home the Kirk Gibson home run ball that night, Ed said he gave it to a bygone girlfriend, who has since ghosted the family. Moreover, in 2016, Carlos failed a lie detector test relating to The Ball in a Brian Biegel documentary for the Smithsonian Channel, casting doubt on his story.

Furthermore, when I study the Gibson home run footage again, homing in on the figure wearing a ‘black t-shirt and a gray zippered sweatshirt,’ as Ed described Carlos in his blog post, that figure does not – in my opinion – make a concerted effort to lunge for the baseball. See the below screenshot, clipped from the last millisecond of NBC crowd footage, in which I have highlighted Carlos Moran:

Of course, there are several caveats to reiterate here. This is my attempt to pinpoint a man in a black t-shirt and gray zippered sweatshirt in blurry screenshot of crappy 1980s television footage. Furthermore, my estimation of the baseball (white dot) and the person most likely to have scooped it up (star) are just that – estimations. They could be totally wrong.

However, I feel pretty confident about my triangulations here – for whatever that is worth. So sure, it is entirely my opinion, but from the NBC footage, the written description provided by Ed Moran, and the Biegel documentary, I do not believe Carlos was best placed to nab The Ball. He could have, but in my mind, there are at least four more likely candidates in the above screenshot alone.

It is also important to note that several people would have returned home from Game 1 of the 1988 World Series bearing baseballs salvaged from Dodger Stadium. Many of them would even have been official game balls, replete with the distinct red logo and the autograph of commissioner Peter Ueberroth. Therefore, I do not dispute that Carlos and Jasmine caught a baseball that night. But remember, even in his lone plate appearance, Kirk Gibson fouled four balls out of play, and dozens were used throughout the game. Oh, and Section 302 is right next to the visitor’s bullpen at Dodger Stadium. A reliever may have tossed a few balls into the stands, for all we know. So finding the baseball remains borderline impossible. 

* * *

Nevertheless, in the spirit of full disclosure, I kept probing at leads of various veracity. Aside from the Moran theory, another claim surfaced by Rovell – that of Sergeant William Dumas – interested me. “I visited Dodger Stadium back on August 2, 2010, while on R&R,” Dumas told Rovell. “We were told that the ball was recovered by a security employee and out of good faith returned the ball to Mr. Gibson without asking for any gratuity.”

Rovell instantly dismissed such a suggestion as ‘not true,’ but a simple fact remains: Kirk Gibson is the only person mentioned by multiple sources – Jim Murray, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times journalist, and William Dumas, a military sergeant – as having The Ball. That must be explored.

Frustratingly, I was unable to find William Dumas, and the unfortunate surname did strike me as a potential troll. I also tried, and failed, to reach Bob Solorza, head of security for the Dodgers in 1988. Trying to reach Gibson himself, intent on questioning whether he actually has The Ball, I emailed the Detroit Tigers, with whom he is currently a special assistant and broadcaster. Predictably, they did not reply. Gibson’s foundation also refused to coordinate an interview.

I do not wish to spark a Kirk Gibson conspiracy theory here. Aside from the little white lie he told about signing and returning Pamela Guard’s photo, I have no reason to question his honesty. Moreover, Gibson seems to be a very charitable guy. He also earned $15.6 million during his baseball career, per Baseball-Reference, so there is no immediate financial need for him to hoard The Ball. But still, this cannot be entirely ruled out – perhaps for purely sentimental reasons. Ultimately, multiple reputable sources have claimed Gibson has The Ball, and only his anecdotal denial says otherwise. 

* * *

On reflection, trying to find the Kirk Gibson home run ball, almost four decades after it was last seen, may have been a fool’s errand. There are enough whacky theories about The Ball to fill whole books. From the mundane (it wound up in the Oakland bullpen, where it fell into a nondescript ball bag) to the ordinary (it was swept up in the trash) to the outlandish (the Dodgers have it but refuse to tell fans) – parsing through the claims is incredibly time-consuming. There are additional difficulties, too, such as the lack of official memorabilia authenticators at MLB games back then.

As such, many observers simply conclude the Kirk Gibson home run ball is lost forever; that any claim to possession can never be truly verified. However, I disagree. The Kirk Gibson home run ball can be found, verified and preserved. Doing so is difficult, but it is not impossible.

For one, The Ball may have had a spec of paint or other such mark on it, transferred from Gibson’s bat. “Where the ball hit the bat, it chipped a piece right out of it,” Gibson once told the Los Angeles Times. Gibson used a black bat to hit the career-defining home run, so that is one potential clue to consider.

There is another way to separate authentic 1988 World Series baseballs from replicas, as well. The official 1988 World Series baseballs were stamped with the word ‘Haiti’ – a nod to their manufacturing origin. Sold in team stores, replicas of the ball did not bear such a hallmark. Maybe that can sieve imitations.

And finally, I’m no forensics expert, but knowing the identity of at least two people who touched that baseball – Dennis Eckersley and Pamela Guard – may open new lines of potential corroboration. All traces of DNA may have vanished from The Ball, if they ever existed at all, but only an optimist will crack this case. Only someone willing to embrace the lunatic fringe – to ask seemingly demented questions – will find the holy grail.

* * *

Indeed, The Ball must be somewhere, even if that somewhere is a landfill site or city dump. I’m yet to find it, but I have shone a light on key people involved while unearthing fresh context and insightful nuggets. Simply telling the story of Pamela Guard – so long overlooked, yet so worthy of celebration – is a triumph, while my new suggested pathways towards identifying and verifying The Ball may be pursued by internet sleuths of an altogether more aggressive bent. 

In the end, then, I failed in my main objective of finding the Kirk Gibson home run ball, but I hope to have nudged the story along a little, at least. I hope to have moved the needle somewhat; to have tipped the scales away from conjecture and conspiracy, towards rigour and inquiry.

Part of me yearns to find that cherished baseball. It is one of the sport’s last great mysteries, and solving it would be a thrill. But after plumbing the murky depths of this maddening tale, another part of me concludes The Ball’s current location is not even that important. Kirk Gibson’s World Series walk-off was a magical moment in its own right – the happiest in many lives. That legacy will never be diminished by latter day geocaching. The Ball’s location is a mere historical footnote, but one that intrigues me still.