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Posted By: MW

What was most surprising to me the first time around was not the fact that a mistake was made. That's excusable. It happens to all of us. It was that the story/auction description was "cooked" to fit that of an authentic game-used bat. As far as I'm concerned, that type of methodology is seriously flawed. The provenance should emerge in the course of researching a game-used item; it should not be invented, apart from fact, to enhance authenticity. That being said, Mastronet DID pull the item from its auction and should be commended for it.

Something else that bothered me was that the autograph and the inscription on the bat both appeared to be bogus. The original Mastronet auction description decreed that both were penned by Ichiro and yet some very basic research revealed the fact that Ichiro did not have sufficient command of the English language to have done such a thing. Finally -- and this was something that has never been addressed -- the suggestion was made that Mastronet was under time constraints and therefore, did not have a sufficient opportunity to fully research the item before it was offered as "authentic" to collectors. My question is this -- since when do time constraints have anything to do with authenticity? What if a previously unknown Babe Ruth "game-used" bat were consigned a week before a Mastronet Catalog went to press? Would we be so similarly dismissive and use time constraints as a reasonable excuse if that item were later found to be nothing more than a store model bat?

Robert's first post in this thread provides new information that I (and I assume others) were not previously aware of. If it is untrue, that's one thing, but to make the claim that his motivations are jaundiced without explaining why or to discount what he says without providing evidence to the contrary, is pointless. Those who try to dismiss Robert's statements in such a manner -- with nothing more than their own subjective feelings -- are hypocritical at best since they are doing the same thing that they accuse Robert of. I have spoken at length with independent memorabilia experts and the facts that Robert has posted check out. If someone has evidence to the contrary, let's see it.