Well,
To followup on my Trackball quest. I decided to go ahead and try the Wico Trackball. I ordered the 2 1/4. I'm pretty cheap and I decided to risk the 25$ since I was placing an order with them anyway. rather than the 80+ bucks on a Happs trackball.
I had looked at a few articles on hacking spinners and trackballs and thought that I would give it a try.
I used a USB mouse and used the existing optic board in the Wico trackball. After a few issues with bad wiring, (I'm a serious rookie at soldering and desoldering) the trackball works great. I get no backspin and it works great in windows and in Mame!

I am so psyched!

Something I hacked actually worked!
Rocky