Babe Ruth Bat on Ebay...

[Mark]

Originally Posted by SetBuilder

I don't collect bats and balls and other pieces of memorabilia, so please excuse my ignorance on this subject.

When buying a ::insert player name here::game used bat, how on Earth can you trust that it was used by that player? Could it have been merely touched by that player, then passed off as game used? Could it just be a similar model bat used by that player and passed off as his?

These are all questions I wonder about when I look at listings like these. I would never buy a "game used" anything unless I get a forensic image analysis that pinpoints the item to an actual game.

The most common way that they link a bat to a player is to match weight, length (sometimes), handle style (sometimes), model number or type, et alia to the player's known factory orders. Hillerich and Bradsby have shared much of their factory records from the early 20's onward with a few experts, and there is a handy book listing the orders placed by hall of famers in the 20th century. The thinking is that if a player took the time to order a bat, he must have planned to use it. If there are any signs of use, ball marks, spike marks, etc., then the bat is usually said to be "game used." But it's better to say that one of these bats is "so and so's pro model bat." It's still pretty cool to see one, if you ask me.

An even better way of tracing a bat to a pre-war player is side writing, the grease pencil notation on some H&B bats which indicates that the bat was sent by the player to the H&B factory so that it could be used as a model for the player's future bats. The thinking is that the player selected the bat himself to be the model for more of his bats and that the bat must therefore have been used in game situations.