Howard Wakefield

[FrankWakefield]

Another try

OK... This bat is about 38 inches long. Old style knob, no marking on the end of the knob. The last pic depicts the now faint markings that H&B had put on the bat to identify it.
In the back of my mind is that the bat doesn't date to 1905ish... but that it's from the early to mid 1910's, when he was back in the minors and playing or managing; I don't recall
the details of why I thought that now.

This bat helps someone to understand the change in bat physics in baseball. The home run increase wasn't only due to Ruth, clean white balls, lively balls, and such. Add in there bat
dimensions. With this long bat you could beat snakes, carry it around as a whopping stick. It'd last a while; maybe a season or three. A few years later, bats are shorter, have a bigger
barrel, and a skinny handle. These bats have a center of gravity that's better centered at the barrel. These new bats would put more of a charge in a batted ball; but the skinnier
handles resulted in many more broken bats. So add bat physics to a reason for the increase of home runs as the game left the dead ball era.

[obiwan1129]

That is so cool! Thanks for sharing.