Was Black Betsy White?

[Deadball]

The Erwin Bat will be offered at auction today. Is there anyone who still believes it is Black Betsy? Do the original authenticators still stand behind their letters?

If you still believe, can you please explain:

--why Jackson was never photographed during his major league career with his favorite bat

--why Jackson called his favorite bat Black Betsy even though it was not black, while he had black bats he called by other names

--why a bat made c. 1901 would have the dimensions of the Erwin Bat rather than the dimensions common to the era

--if you believe Spalding removed Black Betsy's black finish and failed to replace it and also made the bat considerably shorter with a much thinner handle, when Jackson asked them only to “finish it”

--why Spalding would stamp that bat not only with the Spalding name but with separate stamps denoting a retail model

--if you believe it is a coincidence the newly finished and stamped bat matched in length, weight and stampings a Spalding store model bat from the late teens

--why Spalding produced a Black Betsy retail model not patterned on the Black Betsy they had finished for Jackson

I see Heritage visited the page displaying my contact information. Given that they have not written an addendum to their lot description, I must conclude they believe I failed to raise valid points.

~Take the red pill

Jim Johnson

[Deadball]

I certainly don't want to come off as defensive, but I did want to address the Black Betsy question. I've been working in sports auctions exclusively for twelve years and the bat has some of the strongest provenance I've ever encountered. You have numerous sources discussing the unusual curve of the Black Betsy. You have photos of Jackson with the bat. There are newspaper articles dating over decades. There is the will, and the letter from the heir. The notion that Jackson saved two very distinctively curved bats with early Spalding imprints for over four decades but that he and his family only acknowledged the existence of one seems astronomically improbable. We all know that PSA/DNA doesn't throw around GU 10 grades without good reason. Any smart collector knows that a little skepticism is a good thing, but this is evidence even the OJ and Casey Anthony jurors couldn't ignore. In other words, we'll take that "heavy sum" action. I'll be looking to retire in twenty years.
__________________
Thank you,
Jonathan Scheier
Cataloger - Consignment Director
Heritage Auctions (www.HA.com)
JonathanS@HA.com
1-800-872-6467 X1314

placed in the thread by Jim Johnson

[Deadball]

You can have your provenance, Jonathan. I have the bat itself, which is all anyone needs.

Your provenance and attribution relies on the word of a man who honestly came to believe over time he owned Black Betsy but who also had a chance to make half a million dollars to several million dollars by saying so in the strongest possible terms and the recollection of an eighty year-old man trying to remember fifty year-old conversations. Might these statements and recollections be subjected to some critical thinking? The photographs you reproduced in the catalog and the absence of earlier photographs supports my thesis that the bat you sold, which I will now call White Betsy or Lil’ Barnstormer, was never used by Jackson in the major leagues. All one can say is that it is a store model, Spalding bat Jackson used in the 1930s while barnstorming.

Your comparison of the “evidence” you have to the prosecution’s evidence in the OJ Simpson trial is inapposite. Prosecutors in the Simpson case had strong physical evidence in size 12 footprints matching Simpson’s and a serious cut Simpson sustained on the night of the murders. Mathematician John Allen Paulos calculated the probability those two pieces of physical evidence might turn up together at about 1 in 4,000. That is pretty strong evidence of guilt. What period evidence do you have that Lil’ Barnstormer is Black Betsy and not just a barnstorming bat? Can you present a shred of period, documentary evidence that Lil’ Barnstormer existed prior to the 1930s? Can you present a shred of evidence based on the bat itself that Lil’ Barnstormer could have been made prior to about 1916? Black Betsy, readers will recall, was made in 1901.

With respect to the physical evidence presented by the bat itself, you are forced to rely on three theories. The first is the “magic bat” theory, which is that Jackson liked Black Betsy so much he was afraid to use it or even be photographed holding it while in the major leagues, but that this fear disappeared while he was barnstorming. The second is the “bat within a bat” theory, which is that Black Betsy was black and extremely long with a thick handle, but when asked only to “finish it,” Spalding removed the black finish, made the bat shorter and the handle thinner and then applied not only the Spalding stamping but additional stampings designating a store model. The third is the “Spalding was wrong” theory, which is that even though they had Jackson's Black Betsy as a model, Spalding produced a line of Black Betsy bats for retail sale that look nothing like Lil’ Barnstormer and everything like the black bats Jackson was always photographed holding during his major league career.

Do you really want to discuss probabilities? Estimate the probability of the “magic bat,” “bat within a bat,” and “Spalding was wrong” theories each being true independently. Now multiply those three numbers together. The number you just calculated is the probability Lil’ Barnstormer is Black Betsy. Does any reader come up with a probability better than 1 in 1,000?

I can always forgive someone who makes an honest mistake. The question is what people do when confronted with new evidence. Heritage employees accessed my profile twice prior to the auction, indicating they were aware of my postings. Yet you failed to ask me any questions, did not ask for additional information, and Heritage did not make any of the evidence I presented, including multiple period documents that directly contradict the Black Betsy attribution, available to bidders. When you did respond on net54, you did so in a different thread and without attempting to answer a single question of the many I raised. You don't owe it to me. You owe it to the people who bid on Lil' Barnstormer.

You fall back on the idea “PSA doesn’t just throw around Game Used 10 ratings,” even though their rating was given before I presented my evidence and as if PSA’s rating can take the place of your own due diligence. There was a time when people in banking said something like: “Moody’s doesn’t just throw around AAA ratings for mortgage backed securities.” That thought saved them from actually having to analyze the mortgages themselves, and it did not work out so well. Letters from authenticators occasionally play a similar role in the sale of sports memorabilia, saving the auction houses from having to confront the real questions raised by analysis.

You can say it ain’t so, Jonathan, but I am afraid it is.

~Take the red pill

I started a blog, which you can find at whitebetsy.wordpress.com. In it from time to time I will share my analysis of baseball memorabilia offered for auction or sale. I promise the next one will not involve an item offered by Heritage.

Jim Johnson

[Leon]

Hi Jim
So from the above statement you actually own the original, other "Black Betsy?" Therefore you have a huge vested interest in the one just sold and it's a huge situation for you personally? It's always nice to know where someone is coming from. Please don't let me stop the debate. Just because you do or don't own something doesn't change any facts. take care and thanks for posting.

[Deadball]

Leon,

I do not own Black Betsy or any other Joe Jackson bat. I have no financial interest in this debate whatsoever. If I did, I would certainly disclose it.

What I meant in the first paragraph was that I have the physical evidence of Lil' Barnstormer on my side of the debate and Heritage has provenance on their side. Given a choice between the two, I take the evidence presented by the bat itself, which is inconsistent with what we know about Black Betsy from numerous period sources and common sense.

~Take the red pill

Jim Johnson

[packs]

A "Black Betsy" Joe Jackson game bat sold in a Sotheby's auction in 2008. It doesn't have much resemblance to the Erwin. The Sotheby's auction featured a Joe Jackson Black Betsy game bat from the collection of Dr. Richard Angrist.

link from old Beckett article: http://www.beckett.com/estore/news/?A=9320

I also seem to remember in the late 90s when Upper Deck started that 500 home run club bat card craze that they also had redemption cards in their products for memorabilia and one of the cards was for a "Black Betsy." I could be wrong, but I distinctly remember seeing a photo of the man who won it in an old issue of Beckett.