This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/22/2010
Historically significant Ty Cobb game-used, vault-marked lumber from the renowned Louisville Slugger archives. Although this scarce side-written Hillerich & Bradsby relic can be succinctly dated to the 1917-1919 period, it appears virtually identical to the wonderfully appealing period club so famously featured on Cobb’s coveted T206 “Bat On" and "Bat Off Shoulder” variations. Immediately recognizable from those definitive images are the small barrel, large tape-less handle, and large knob style of the offered piece, as well as its natural ash finish, which combine to produce a veritable visual replica of the bat featured on Cobb's iconic T206's and in scores of other period images. In reality, of course, it’s the other way around, as the presented piece is the original, not the reproduction, and in several more ways than one. Like all great hitters, Cobb was very particular about the specifications of his preferred war club, which the H&B employees at the Louisville Slugger factory would eventually dub “His Model” or “His Original Model” because of the consistency of his specs throughout the dead-ball era, which lasted, like the offered bat itself, until 1919 (when Babe Ruth changed the game forever with his record 29 HRs). The 34 ½” total bat length is a perfect match to Cobb’s precise index length according to the surviving H&B factory records, and the 35 ¾ ounce weight is also consistent with Cobb’s specifications for the period. Although corresponding factory weight records do not exist for the professionally opined years of issue, Cobb’s 1920 H&B factory records indicate a preferred weight of 36-42 ounces, lighter in the first part of his accomplished career and then growing consistently heavier until his retirement in 1928. While some degree of weight loss to the offered bat can of course be attributed to the drying of the ash wood over the last 90 years, an argument can also be made that the offered bat hails from an even earlier period than 1917-19, when Cobb was experimenting with the lightest bats he’d use throughout his entire career. The “125 dash-dot-dash” H&B centerbrand stamping style, however, convincingly dates the bat to the 1917-22 period, while the opinion from reputed MEARS authenticator, Troy Kinunen, helps to further narrow the date of origin to 1917-19, if not earlier. The H&B archival side-writing reads: “Ty Cobb 191_,” and although the last numeral of the H&B archivist’s side-written grease pencil notation is not legible, it can only be a 7, 8, or 9 because of the documented centerbrand stamp, even though some experts believe this stamp could have been used as early as 1916. With that understanding, Kinunen writes in his LOA that it is his “expert opinion [that] this bat was manufactured between 1916-17,” citing the fact that the soon-to-be Louisville Slugger standard of impressing bat barrels with a players’ names “did not occur with any regularity until approximately 1919.” This obviously makes identification of most dead-ball era Louisville Slugger sticks somewhat sketchy, unless, of course, a particular bat, like the offered masterpiece tendered for auction here, treated a player so remarkably well over the course of numerous afternoon ballpark affairs, that he intentionally returned it to the H&B factory upon its tragic, mid-game demise so that the H&B employees could immediately produce several others exactly like it. The simple thought that the great Ty Cobb once cajoled this mighty club in his hands is overwhelming enough, but the idea that he most likely connected and collected at least a few dozen (and maybe even a few hundred) of his record-setting 4,189 hits with this very bat is positively stupefying. Indeed, to admire its heavy game use—the ball marks, the deeply embedded stitch marks, the cleat marks—to hold it and feel both its physical and historical weight, to wrap one’s hands around the handle and over the soiled knob, over layers of sweat and dirt and probably even blood, to wield this war club for even a brief moment is to cradle the very essence of our national pastime. Some expected imperfections include an 11” H-style handle crack, some minor accumulations of dead wood in the cleat and deeper ball and stitch marks, and some typical swelling of the wood grain. These are so insignificant, however, that the MEARS evaluation accounts for them with the smallest possible half-point deduction (from a maximum of 4 points that could be deducted for similar but more advanced physical wear). With the maximum 5 points for the factory index match, the maximum 3 points for heavy game-use, and the maximum 2 points for provenance as supplied by the archival side-writing as well as an immediately recognizable rectangular area on the barrel where Cobb’s original mailing label has helped preserve the natural finish of the ash, the final grade as deemed by MEARS, the best in the bat business, is a remarkable A9.5. Finally, as stated in the MEARS Letter of Opinion, “this bat was a favorite of Cobb. Judging by the amount of use, the bat was used by Ty Cobb over the course of 2 or three seasons… The bat was returned to the factory as Cobb personally requested this bat to be used for future models to be made from. The side-writing indicated the factory archived this bat, as a template to make future bats.”