YEARS ago, I bought a NIB Pink Hammer (this was back in the "short oil" period). Told the guy I wanted it for the extreme dry they had there.
He took it out of the box, and proceeded to "polish" it with finesse it and an abrasive pad (sorry, I never knew what grit), then continued the process with a regular buffing pad.
I asked him why he did that. He said that doing it this way "embedded" the polish into the shell, and made it slicker than the oob finish.
That was with hard, non porous urethane. Don't know what effect it would have on a porous shelled reactive ball, but I sure loved that old pink ball.