The phrase “worth its weight in gold” is often meant to be an exaggeration. But in the case of one particular Lou Gehrig bat sold this month at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, comparing it to gold would underselling the value a bit — it sold for closer to fifteen and a half times the price of 40 ounces of gold, at $1,025,000.
“There are only a handful of bats that have ever surpassed a million dollars, either at auction or a private sale,” says Chris Ivy, the auction house’s Director of Sports Auctions. “So yeah, that doesn’t happen too often.”
A quick Google search for “Lou Gehrig game-used bat” quickly establishes that they’re pricy pieces of memorabilia, but what separates the $80,000-$400,000 bats from the ones that go seven digits? The answer lies in the significance of the specific bat. A bat that can be proven to have been used in an historically significant at-bat would be worth more than one he used for a few games and tossed. In this case, the seven-digit bat wasn’t just a game-used bat, it was the one that Gehrig sent to Hillerich and Bradsby (makers of Louisville Slugger bats) as a model when he got his first endorsem*nt deal.
“It’s ‘Bat Zero’,” says Robert Wilonsky, who recently took a job working for the auction company.
Of course, there’s the matter of proof. MLB has an authenticator on hand at every big-league game now, so recent pieces of history are more easily proven to be what the seller claims. But this bat came from a much earlier era — one in which bats were occasionally given away as gifts, sure. But the collection of sports memorabilia was almost exclusively a casual hobby in those days. A game-used bat was often regarded merely as a conversation piece for those fortunate enough to have been in the proximity of the sport’s stars.
“These items didn’t really have any intrinsic value until, I would say, the mid-’70s, early-’80s when baseball collectibles started to become more common and known,” says Ivy. “They were just tools to the baseball players. But they were tools that the players loved; they took care of them.”
Of course, anyone can say they have “Bat Zero” — how did Heritage go about authenticating that this one was what it claimed to be? For that, they turned to John Taube of J.T. Sports, who has been authenticating bats and other sports memorabilia for over 30 years.
Taube was a collector before he was an authenticator; his expertise began years ago when he was simply trying to determine the authenticity of the pieces he wanted to purchase. Eventually, that pursuit led him to forge a relationship with Hillerich and Bradsby, who allowed him and his partner Vince Malta to access their vast library of ordering records.
“We actually went down and we sat for days with their microfilm machines, copying the actual player records,” Taube says. “Taking a bat and authenticating it as a professional bat is pretty simple if you have the ordering records. Because you have the length and the weight, the records show you the model of the bat that was ordered … and the date that it was ordered by the player. So then the expertise really comes into taking that back and placing it in the player’s hands, rather than in a teammate’s hands or somebody else.”
In the case of this particular bat, Taube said the singularity of the piece made it easier than most.
“Well, in the case of that bat, it’s pretty easy,” Taube says. “Gehrig’s name is on the bat in block letters, last name only. That indicates that the bat was produced for him prior to him having an endorsem*nt contract with Louisville Slugger. And the date of the endorsem*nt contract for him, with the company is…”
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Taube pauses for a few moments and in the silence of his pause, you can hear pages turning in the background over the phone call.
“…October 15 of 1923,” he concludes. “So immediately you know that the bat was produced prior to October of 1923. The other significant feature of the bat is that it is factory side-written. During that period of time back in the early 20s … he sent the bat back to the factory to have identical bats made, the same model. When they received the bat, the pro player rep at the time — which was Henry Morrow — would take the bat and he would mark on it the weight the date it was received, and the player who sent it in. So here you have a very clear trail from Gehrig back to the factory.”
Sure enough, on the side of this bat, in Morrow’s handwriting, it reads “40 oz., Lou Gehrig, 4-22-25”
But if Gehrig was endorsed late in 1923 and this bat wasn’t sent to the factory until April of 1925, what happened to the bats Gehrig used between those two dates? After all, we’ve seen baseball games where players go through three or four bats in a single game, right?
“Back then, these guys kept their bats for years,” Wilonsky explains. “Babe Ruth used the same bat for 5, 6, 7 years. Plus these bats were much heavier. They were 40-ounce bats, and they were made much differently. So they were heavier bats and they lasted longer. Some players used nails to keep their bats together. It wasn’t like today; they weren’t just being mass-manufactured the way they are now. So they just kept them for many, many years. In fact that there is some discussion about the fact that this might have been a bat that Gehrig used while he was at Columbia, and Hartford and then with the Yankees.”
The ability to knoweverything about history has its limits. But there are enough clues that Taube was able to confirm the provenance of this particular piece.In addition to the player records, Taube says that he and Malta have developed a few other failsafes to help them spot any potential counterfeits. In fact, according to his website, there is a 25-step process they put each bat through. As a result, when Heritage has an auction coming up, they’ll fly Taube in from New Jersey to authenticate the pieces before they go to auction.
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“Nineteen caliper readings taken from the original bat perfectly match the specs of those that followed, suggesting that this million-dollar bat was the one that birthed them all,” says the press release from Heritage.
Collectors who missed out on this particular item will have plenty of other options, including a bat used by Gehrig’s teammate: The piece of lumber that Babe Ruth used to hit his 52nd home run in 1921 will be up for auction soon.
“As he was approaching the 60th home run (Ruth finished one short of the mark with 59 that season), he was giving his game-used bats away that he used to hit different home runs with. And so we’ve previously sold — it’s called the Ansonia bat because Babe Ruth lived at The Ansonia hotel, and he used the Ansonia letterhead. So he would type out the letters and say, ‘This is the bat that I used for my 59th home run’ and sign it. The bat we’re selling is actually the one that he used to hit his 52nd home run. It comes with a letter from Ruth. Unfortunately, the letter was secretarially signed; he had someone sign it on his behalf. But the one we sold previously for his 59th home run sold for $717,000.”
The identity of the Gehrig bat’s buyer and seller were not made public — Ivy says that the auction house offers both parties the ability to opt in to press releases, but most collectors decide to remain anonymous. Sometimes, especially in an unstable stock market, buyers will buy one-of-a-kind pieces of memorabilia to diversify their money.
“It’s not like there’s gonna be any more of these,” Wilonsky says.
“You can’t hang your IBM stock on the wall,” jokes Ivy.
All photos courtesy of Heritage Auctions
