Collect this pair of pristine condition Rawlings Official Major League baseballs— both balls are hand-signed & inscribed by Robert O’Neill, the Navy SEAL credited with killing Osama bin Laden, during the 2011 Operation Neptune Spear— and are irreplaceable mementos of Naval and U.S. history.
O’Neill has signed each ball on the sweet spot. On one ball, he has added the inscription “5/2/11”; on the other ball is O’Neill’s inscription “NEVER QUIT!”. Both signatures and inscriptions are in bold, blue ballpoint pen.
On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan by United States Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six). The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a CIA-led operation with Joint Special Operations Command, commonly known as JSOC, coordinating the Special Mission Units involved in the raid.
In an anonymous February 2013 interview, Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill told Esquire that he had killed Osama bin Laden during Operation Neptune Spear. Of his decision to lay claim to killing bin Laden, O'Neill told CBS News that “I think it's a difficult secret to keep… Everyone was proud. I think it was apparent that we had done it.”
On October 14, 2020, then-US President Donald Trump re-tweeted an unfounded conspiracy theory that suggested Osama bin Laden was still alive and a body double was shot. O'Neill responded with a series of tweets, including, “It was not a body double. Thank you Mr. President.” That same month, CNN published an interview with retired Admiral William H. McRaven; the former flag officer who oversaw Neptune Spear responded to the claims, mentioning that “Rob O'Neill, the SEAL that, in fact, shot bin Laden”.
The baseballs were signed by former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill “in the presence” of a representative from PSA/DNA Authentication Services, and each comes with an “In-the-Presence” Certificate of Authenticity from PSA. In addition, as part of the authentication process, each ball has ben permanently marked with a proprietary invisible ink that contains a patented strand of synthetic DNA, and bears an authenticating label, corresponding to the accompanying COA.