[sphere and ash]

Hillerich & Bradsby have a museum dedicated to telling the story of their contribution to batmaking. I would like to ask the question their story begs: what did we lose with H&B’s ascendency?

I ask because when I look at pre-H&B bats, they are invariably beautiful, of different woods, including tiger maple. Spalding, despite its mass market positioning, had a beautiful line of store model bats.

When I look at early H&B bats, by contrast, they are bland and indistinguishable. Bats of deadball era stars differ from one another only by their signature (Joe Jackson is a rare exception and one of a very few H&B patents).

Would variation in batmaking have continued if H&B hadn’t introduced the signature model? Or was H&B responsible for reducing variation in batmaking to ash (and later hickory)?

What did H&B really contribute to batmaking?

Please post your pre-H&B bats.