Side-Written Bats
 

Can someone provide details on side-written bats? Who wrote the name, significance of the date, how they were shipped, destination and so on?

Basically a player would use a bat he liked that was not already to his file specifications and would then send it to the company to make more like it for them. For example Babe Ruth might use a teammates bat and love it and then when it cracked he would send it in to have bats made for him to those specification, thus having a Babe Ruth sidewritten bat on a Harry Hooper model or something like that. The player would usually just slap some stamps and a label right on the bat and then when it was received at H&B they would write in grease pen the name of the player sending it in along with the date and team as well as the inch marks and weight. The bat would then be put in a vault and stored for future ordering specifications. That is a simple way of explaining it in a nutshell.

Rhys

I'm no game used expert, but have read various game used experts that side written is very desirable as it shows the bat came from the player himself. Player provenance.