I've had very successful recent dealings with both the Braves and Royals staff on game-used balls, so this is not a criticism of them at all. They've been helpful and pleasant.

But I've been dismayed to find at least four obvious errors in the MLB database in just two games, one by the Royals and one by the Braves. Three of these errors were mixing up top and bottom of innings: the database had visiting players batting in the bottom, and home players batting in the top. Another error had a pitch in the dirt coded as a broken bat, when it was an authenticated ball.

In each case, the team stores had the items correct on their own records. I suspect that means that the local authenticators had it right on their written sheets, that were provided to the team stores. But somebody else entered it wrong in the MLB database.

What's behind this recent error-rate? Is MLB hiring clerical people who don't know enough about baseball to spot these obvious entry errors?

To her credit, Alyse with the Braves got the errors promptly corrected in the database when I e-mailed her about them. So I emphasize I'm not criticisizing the staff in the team stores. Does somebody here know what's going on with these entry errors?