Mantle Corked Bat?

[HRBAKER]

Hadn't seen this yet:

http://nesn.com/2013/05/mickey-mantle-corked-his-bat-x-ray-commissioned-by-auctioneer-proves-photo/

[ruth-gehrig]

Yeah I've seen this one and also a Pete Rose corked bat a while back. The thing that I don't understand is how do we know this cork wasn't added long after the player used it? Can either bat be placed in Mantle or Rose's hands WHILE it was corked???

[Rob D.]

Speaking from experience, I can attest to the fact that many players have a few of their bats corked just to see whether there's a difference and use them only in batting practice. You'd be surprised how many players see no advantage whatsoever.

[UnVme7]

Norm Cash and Jim Rice were others that used corked bats. I think it was more common than most think...

[BigJJ]

A number of Rose corked bats have surfaced with tremendous game use. This being the only Mantle pro model bat to surface with supposed cork - and without ball marks all over the bat, which is usually the case with Mantle bats, as he was a switch hitter - and with what appears to be lighter use, "a few ball marks", which, along with Rob D's statement above, may indicate this may be a tryout bat, perhaps in hitting practice - I do not think this is enough evidence at all to indicate Mantle used corked bats in games. If at all, someone may have tried it out in practice, given the lighter use, but the 60s Mantle bats Ive seen, the favored Mantle bats Ive seen, were slopped with a number of applications of mid-bat pine tar and decimated with seam marks that have darkened with age. Mantle crushed the ball. If the bat were covered in ball marks with a splattering of pine tar in the middle, I'd say maybe (though still likely no). That being said this is a Mantle pro model bat, with a lighter coat, single coat? of mid-bat pine tar, and it is supposedly used. But given the use, which is stated as lighter, I agree with Rob D's take that Mantle was likely just testing it out. (perhaps pre drilling) or more likely something is not right with the story/bat. Given the number of players using cork and reports of cork's affects on the bat and ball at the time, I would think most players would have been curious to try it out, but my bet for the vast majority of the curious if at all would be hitting practice. If Mantle were a corker, we would all have known about it for a long time. Mantle's bats broke very frequently in games, and yet also a good number of his bats survive, particularly from late in his career. and none are corked.

[prewarsports]

I once owned a Heinie Groh game used bottle bat and over the years the cork had deteriorated in the middle and you could actually hear the fragments of dried up cork rattling around inside the bat. So it was being done in the 1910's as well! I think bat corking is more of a mental thing than anything, you think you have an advantage so you go up there more confident and do better. Just my opinion as a former player as well as a Baseball Historian.

Rhys

[BigJJ]

Had never heard of cork in the bat going back so far. Interesting. Might your previously owned bat be the earliest surviving corked bat?

[Rob D.]

But given the use, which is indeed there, but lighter, I agree with Rob D's take that Mantle was likely just testing it out.

Just for the record, I didn't mean to imply whether Mantle did or did not use a corked bat in games. I have no opinion. Just wanted to put out there that a lot of players have their bats corked for use in BP and/or intrasquad games during spring training.