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Joe Jackson game used bat?
kevper
Posts: 18 ✭
I have recently acquired a 1917-21 era dash-dot-dash H&B bat. It's 35.75" long and currently weighs 44.7 ounces. It is blank barreled but contains two lines of side writing. The most interesting part of the side writing reads "Sent.in.by.Jackson". I believe that I furthermore can make out a date of 5-31-21 in the side writing. The bat has a thick handle and a significant amount of tobacco juice on the handle. A few pictures are attached. More pictures are available.
Are there any bat experts out there who have access to Joe Jackson's PBOR from H&B? Any opinions on this bat will be appreciated.
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Send it to PSA.
https://psacard.com/probatfacts/star-players/joe-jackson/1653
https://kennerstartinglineup.blogspot.com/
AI's take.
Based on the provided photos, this bat is definitely not a game-used Shoeless Joe Jackson bat.
While it is a genuine vintage baseball bat with historical interest, the manufacturer's stamps clearly show it was manufactured decades after Joe Jackson's major league career ended.
Why it is not a Joe Jackson Game-Used Bat:
The center oval stamp features "HILLERICH & BRADSBY CO" with the full line "TRADE MARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF." curved cleanly underneath the oval. In the middle of the oval, you see the catalog designation 125. According to Louisville Slugger official dating guidelines, this exact oval and trademark placement was utilized between 1916 and 1933.
The close-up images of the barrel show the factory stamp: "MADE BY HILLERICH & BRADSBY CO." followed by standard retail text (likely patent details or a retail model identifier, rather than a player signature).
Joe Jackson's career effectively ended in 1920 due to his lifetime ban following the 1919 Black Sox scandal. Furthermore, throughout his entire professional career, Jackson famously refused to use Louisville Slugger bats in games. He custom-ordered his bats from a local woodworker named Charley Ferguson, who crafted his legendary, dark-stained custom hickory bats known as "Black Betsy." Jackson never used a standard light-finish corporate Louisville Slugger in an MLB game.
What is this bat?
This is a standard 125-grade retail store model bat produced between 1916 and 1933. The "125" doesn't mean it belonged to a player; it was simply Hillerich & Bradsby's catalog number for their highest tier of retail store wood.
While it lacks multi-million dollar sports memorabilia value, a pre-Depression era Louisville Slugger 125 store-model bat in solid condition is still an excellent piece of American baseball history, typically valued by collectors between $100 to $250 depending on the specific player endorsement or model stamped on the end.
i believe that true Jackson gamers are exceedingly rare.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Thank you for the comments, ArtVandelay and craig44. It's true that authenticated Joe Jackson gamers are exceedingly rare and very high priced.
Concerning AI's take that was posted by ArtVandelay. I am an experienced vintage game used bat collector. There are several things that AI has gotten wrong in their assessment. It seems that AI has pulled quite a bit of their info from the Keyman Collectibles website. The info Steve has provided on his website is valuable and much appreciated, but it is incomplete in some ways.
Specifically, in 2007 Vince Malta published "A Complete Reference Guide to Louisville Slugger Professional Player Bats". This guide is considered the go-to reference for Hillerich & Bradsby bats, especially vintage ones. Of immediate consideration is that this guide differentiates the 1916-1933 center branding into several shorter eras. The C-3A and C-3B dash-dot-dash center brands, according to page 14 of this guide, date from 1916-1922. I have seen this same bat era commonly referred to as 1917-1921. So AI's statement that "the manufacturer's stamps clearly show it was manufactured decades after Joe Jackson's major league career ended" is 100% incorrect.
Furthermore, the fact that the bat is side written as well as the fact that there are not inch marks stamped into the knob end of the bat both tell us that this is not a retail (store) model bat. Another detail that AI seems to have gotten wrong is that "throughout his entire professional career, Jackson famously refused to use Louisville Slugger bats in games. He custom-ordered his bats from a local woodworker named Charley Ferguson, who crafted his legendary, dark-stained custom hickory bats known as "Black Betsy." Jackson never used a standard light-finish corporate Louisville Slugger in an MLB game." I don't even know where to begin when addressing this statement. I'll just say emphatically that this statement is incorrect. Of the 19 Joe Jackson game used bats (or those possibly attributed to Joe Jackson) that I have found references to, 17 have been Louisville Slugger bats, whereas one was a 1926-33 Kren's Special and another was the Spalding "Black Betsy" bat.
I hope you don't find my response to be rude or unappreciative. Given the potential value of this bat, I feel it is important to clarify misinformation. Thank you again for your input. If anyone has access to Jackson's professional bat ordering records (PBOR), please let me know.
My initial thoughts are that "Jackson" is a fairly common last name and I really can't see Shoeless Joe using a 45 oz bat...
IMF
Great thread and comments. I hope it is the real deal.
Did some digging on this one because the AI answer bugged me. A few things it got wrong, and one thing I think is the real story.
Where the AI missed:
The part I think matters most is the side writing itself. "Sent in by" is the factory logging a bat that came back to Louisville to have copies made. So the real question isn't whether Jackson swung this bat, it's whether a Jackson sent one in on 5-31-21. The timing is interesting. Comiskey released him in March 1921, the trial started the last week of June, and during the trial he was playing weekend games at White City in Chicago with Risberg, Gandil, Williams and Felsch. Sending in a bat at the end of May fits a guy getting ready to play somewhere.
What cuts the other way:
If anyone has the 1921 H&B ordering records, a Jackson entry around the end of May with a spec close to 35.75/45 would make this very interesting. Until then I'd call it a great side written bat with a heck of a story, not a Jackson gamer yet.
Research provided by Euler - better AI. Unlike some other AIs, this one read the footnotes. No bats were harmed, but one chatbot was mildly embarrassed.
Thanks for the feedback. Still hoping to find someone with access to Joe Jackson's PBOR from 1919-1921.
Some attributes about the bat that support it being a Joe Jackson gamer - the thick handle, the cleat marks, and the thick black tobacco juice residue covering the handle. Each of those attributes are known Joe Jackson traits.
Regarding the weight, 44.7 ounces is a bit heavy compared to known Jackson gamers. But 39.2-42.3 ounce bats are the norm for the high-end in-career authenticated Jackson gamers presently in the hobby.
Same as with bgr's comments - no bats, balls, gloves, or helmets were harmed in the forming of my comments.
say, hypothetically, this is in fact a Jackson gamer. without photo-matching, how could it be proven that Joe Jackson ever used it in a MLB game? there is clearly no provenance or we wouldnt be having this discussion.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I'd like to point out that AI is not reliable at all. It cannot think, when you ask it something specific it just makes things up or uses bad information.
Llamas and alpacas are camels. They aren't like camels, or related. They are camels. When was anyone going to tell me this?! How long had Bill Nye been holding out on us?
I'm no expert on bats. But, none of those attributes link this bat to Joe Jackson. There were tons, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe, of guys playing baseball back then. There are supposed to be more than 15 million people in the US now who play baseball. I dont think you can say for certain that any mark on this bat is a cleat mark. Even if you could say this bat had cleat marks, that wouldn't get you any closer to proving anything. Tons of guys chewed tobacco back then too. I would think many of them would have used tobacco juice for grip if that was a thing. I also don't know that you can place the writing on the bat in the period.
What did they use to write on the bat?
@craig44 that's the right question, and the side writing actually narrows it. Jackson's last big league game was in late September 1920 - Comiskey suspended the eight on Sept 28 after the grand jury testimony. So if this is his bat and it was sent in on 5-31-21, it can't be a 1921 MLB gamer. Best case it's a bat he used through 1920 and shipped back so Louisville could turn copies for whatever he was playing next. That's still a big deal, but it's a different claim than "game used in the majors," and the side writing date is what makes it provable or not. Without the order records, I don't think anything else on the bat gets you there.
@CardGeek the factory side writing was done in grease pencil when a returned bat was logged in, owner and date on the barrel. Comparing the hand and format against other H&B side written bats from 1920-21 would at least tell you whether the writing is factory and period, which is step one.
@RiveraFamilyCollect you're right that it can't think. We don't need it to think, we need it to reason - start from sources, show every step, and land on a conclusion you can check. The AI answer that kicked this off skipped all of that and just asserted. My post above was AI-assisted too, but it had to show where each claim came from, the stuff it couldn't back up got cut, and the rest got checked against the Sotheby's and Christie's catalogs and the trial timeline. That's the difference between an answer and an argument. And it doesn't need to be perfect to beat the humans - that was always a low bar. This hobby has been running on confident guesses for a hundred years. Trust, but make it cite.
For vintage baseball bats, side writing has long been considered a reliable form of provenance. The only type of provenance that beats side writing is an authentic letter or picture or related document that states the complete history of the bat.
The grade of a vintage bat is generally a measure of how certain we can be that the bat was actually used by a given player. Grades of 7 or higher (out of 10) generally are considered solid belief that the bat was used by the player it is attributed to. Of course, the higher the grade, the stronger the belief (and the bigger the price). Photo matching is awesome, but finding a photo match on vintage bats is far more difficult than it is for present-day bats. I'll pay a big finders fee to anyone who finds a photo match to my bat.
I will be shipping this bat to John Taube (PSA/DNA) in the near future. He is a highly knowledgeable and experienced bat expert whose opinion is well respected throughout the hobby. Before doing so, I'm trying to find Joe Jackson professional bat ordering records (PBOR). I was hoping one of the long-time bat experts might have those records.
Thanks again for the feedback. Feel free to ask any questions you might have.
So you're saying that they authenticate stuff like this based on, "We think maybe he could have possibly used this bat?"
That writing could have been put there 60 years ago. I played with it in Photoshop to enhance the writing. I could bring out some of the writing. I couldn't see what you say it says though. It must look much better in person.
I'm also not sure how you could photomatch something like this. The staining would be changing as the object was used. Or do you mean just a picture of him using a similar bat?
I should have added that for vintage bats, the bat's dimensions and various player attributes are analyzed thoroughly to see if the bat matches documented factory records and/or specific player attributes that are known to exist on other documented game used bats of the given player. Some of the attributes include the presence or absence of cleat marks, pine tar, tobacco juice, handle tape, where on the bat the most use is evident, the type of wood used to turn the bat, the size and type of knob on the bat, the thickness of the bat at various places along the bat, and still other attributes, too. So, a lot goes into determining whether or not a vintage bat was used by the player in question. It's not just a bunch of uneducated guesswork.
None of those attributes, or even any combination of those attributes, would limit that bat to having been used by Joe Jackson though.
This is nowhere near my wheelhouse, but I find it fascinating. I hope you are able to find the ordering records!
Yeah - post the results good or bad please. Bon chance.
Although I'm not 100% certain, I'm fairly confident that Miami in on the right-hand end of the bottom line of side writing. Through research I learned that Joe Jackson played winter ball in the Miami area from December 1920 to March 1921, before heading back to the Chicago area to work on his legal issues and strategy. Given the heavy use displayed on the bat, it's very reasonable to think that Jackson used this bat during the 1920 regular MLB season (and maybe even in 1919), then continued using it during the winter ball games in South Florida, and finally sent it to H&B to be a model for the turning of new replacement bats.
Another word on the top line of the side writing that I'm fairly confident about is Price. That word could be part of a local retailer's name where the bat was shipped from the retailer back to H&B in Louisville. Or it might reference Jim Price, a lawyer who was instrumental in helping Ban Johnson get the Black Sox case brought to court. Or maybe something altogether different. I'm really hoping John Taube will, with his more sophisticated equipment, be able to decipher more of the side writing.
Where did you get it?
@CardGeek:
I agree that the identifiable attributes of this bat do not yet provide definitive proof that it's a Joe Jackson gamer from his MLB playing days. But the more attributes that line up, the higher the probability of the bat being a Joe Jackson gamer. So far, nothing I've analyzed causes me to reject the idea that this is the real thing. In fact, everything fits together nicely for the bat to be a grail of Joe Jackson gamers. John Taube will be the final authority regarding the authentication of the bat. He will analyze the bat at an even deeper level. I hope he can read some more of the side writing, beyond what I have found. And maybe he has Jackson's PBOR.