A Word about 40K Bats - Babe Ruth , Ty Cobb, etc.

[glchen]

Thanks for your information on this. I have always been looking to buy a GU bat, but have been confused by this. I have a few of other questions.

(1) First, let's get the dumb one out of the way. First if someone has a Ruth pro model bat, and say that there are no game used marks on it (e.g., something like a ball mark where the bat hit a ball), could this be added a later time. For example, a guy has a pristine Ruth bat that looks like it was never used. He takes it to his backyard, and hits a couple of balls with it, to "produce" these marks. Is this possible or can people tell that this "mark" was done in "modern" times? (I assume this is not possible to tell.)

On a similar note, I assume there is no way to tell if Ruth actually used the bat, even if the marks were legitimate? That is, one of Ruth's teammates could have borrowed his bat, and used it instead? Do we know if this practice was fairly common or pretty rare (e.g., players borrowing each others bats in prewar times)

(2) Do we know how these bats typically survived to modern times? For example, other than Ruth giving a bat away to a friend or fan, how did the public typically get these bats? Do most of them come from the player's estate? Or did some people just find a bunch of bats at the bat company? For example, many old photos are found when the archives of newspapers go on sale. Did something happen for bats in a similar way? e.g., at the end of every year, the Yankees would sell/give away old bats/memorabilia to the public.

(3) For bats, it is stated that there is only a percentage chance that the player actually used it. How about other memorabilia like jerseys? If there is a Ruth uniform (or hat, etc), is there practically a 100% chance that was used by the player? (assuming it was not counterfeit) For jerseys, it is more about whether any restoration was done (e.g., new buttons) rather than questioning whether the player actually used it? Thanks!