Mears

[TheSquire]

Originally Posted by drc

Team index bats were player model bats ordered by the team for general use. A team index bat could have been used by various players. They often were in different size and weight than what the actual player ordered so can be differentiated from, say, Mickey Mantle's personally ordered bats. Team index bats can definitely be MLB game used, but not necceesarilly by the player who's named on the bat. With a team index bat, there can be a debate about who actually used it.

Team index bats have caused much heartache throughout the hobby. A Ted Williams index bat was auctioned by Legendary last Fall and it ended up on eBay, presumably, when the original buyer realized he had nothing better than a store model bat. They are marketed as game issued, implying the team ordered the bat for the player who's name is on the barrel which is misleading at best and criminal at worst. An unsuspecting buyer think's he's getting a bat ordered specifically for the player in question, when in reality, some hack in AA used it.

[Rob D.]

I've told this story before, but it seems appropriate in this thread:

When I was a "hack" in the Padres organization and playing in Class AA Wichita, our bat orders were backed up at the factory. We were running really low on lumber, so the parent club sent six dozen bats from among the extras the major leaguers had. By pure luck, I was among the first to the ballpark the day those bats arrived, and as I was looking through the boxes, I came across two C271 Tony Gwynn models.

The player in me grabbed them because C271 was the model I used, and the collector in me grabbed them because they were Tony Gwynn's bats. I ended up using one and bringing the other home at the end of the season.

Had I (or anyone else) been so inclined, it would have been pretty easy to use any of those six dozen bats and then down the road pass them off as being game used.

[aro13]

Interesting read. Did this issue ever get resolved?