Frank Howard bat?

[Mountaineer1999]

Originally Posted by MCyganik

Best bet is to ask the "experts" on the MLB Game Used FB Groups, but I'll take a crack at it here. Either way you've got a nice bat for $10... I love "rescuing" vintage bats from local sell apps.

Bat Labeling period is definitely 1973-1975 as mentioned above, and the markings would seem to indicate it was made for pros, not retail. As mentioned above there were 4 Howards in the MLB in that span:

Doug Howard (1972-76)
Frank Howard (ret. 1973)
Larry Howard (ret. 1973)
Wilbur Howard (1973-78)

The pictures are hard to tell, but the bat doesn't seem to show markings consistent with strong game use or handling and as mentioned, there is no number marking on the knob. Although the exemplars of Frank Howard bats show that he rarely used any pine tar (resulting in pretty clean handles) and didn't always put a number on the knob, I'm not seeing any connection to him using M159 style bats (made for Stan Musial and used at points by Ernie Banks, Cal Ripken and Kirby Puckett). It looks as though he primarily used R43 bats (made for Babe Ruth starting in 1933) in the 70s. Then again I don't have access to bat ordering records like some do, so I'm not definitive.

Considering he retired after the 1973 season when this bat labeling started, if it did carry an association to Frank, perhaps he ordered M159 bats in anticipation for 1974. When the Tigers shifted Kaline to full-time DH in 1974 and Howard couldn't find an MLB team to take him he went to Japan in 1974 and played 1 game before injuring his back and never playing again. So perhaps it could be a bat from a 1974 stock order that either wasn't used or lightly used.

Otherwise it might be a game used/game issued bat from one of the other players (or a minor leaguer) listed above.

[IMG][/IMG]

Awesome information! Thanks so much! I was wondering about the Japan year also and do coaches/ managers have their own bats? Maybe with the 73 to 75 dating he could have used it as a coach?

From the limited research I could do, it does seem to be a little lite for Frank but maybe late in his career he went down in bat size.... this bat weighs exactly 34 ounces.