Collecting Game-used: An earlier bat that remains a mystery

Normally when it comes to items I've collected for this Collecting Game-used series what you'd see above is an image of an item in use -- definitive photo-matched proof that the piece I've found was in Player X's hands on X date ... or at least something close to that.

Not this time.

This bat does have a story to it, but it’s all anecdotal and it’s all still a mystery despite it being relatively modern. It’s not a piece that got stickering as it’s from before the time where the Oakland A's even bothered doing MLB Authentication ... not that this came via official team channels. (It didn’t.)

As you can see, this is a Nick Swisher Louisville Slugger and the eBay seller I landed it from last summer had some details -- and that’s what would typically be a starting point -- but I’ve struck out trying to photo-match anything. It happens, but this bat remains the real deal thanks to some trademark modifications made by the player and that model.

Keep reading to see the details.

THE BASICS ...
The Bat: Nick Swisher autographed and used Louisville slugger P72 model -- with no additional manufacturer stamping
Watch it in action: Nope, not this time.

What's Buzz-worthy: The barrel stamp for this bat is appropriate to when he arrived in MLB -- it’s from before the company tweaked its designs in the mid-2000s with moves made to add maple to its lineup -- and it’s potentially from just before Swisher had name-model/MLB team bats of his own, though that’s just an assumption on my part. This could be a MiLB gamer, it could have been from a batch ordered before he knew he was headed to spring training ... or it could just be a standard stock bat he didn’t order that was his preferred model. I do know that, according to Louisville Slugger records and a piece I wrote almost 20 years ago, Swisher actually first ordered P72s as a high-schooler back in 1994. This one isn’t that old, though. It came into a collector’s hands on a day during spring training before I landed it many years later for around $50.

So ... when?

"I don't remember exactly. I want to say this was spring 2004. It was definitely his first spring with the team,” said the Arizona-based seller in a message after I picked off this and another Moneyball player's bats for far, far less. "I know it was at the same time he was using the cool reddish/pinkish bats because that's the one I was shooting to get from him when I hit him up for the bat. This is what he ultimately gave us. I did end up getting one of the red ones eventually. That is still in my PC."

I don’t have any doubts that this bat is real based on the wear, the autograph and the tape job, which is a slightly less intricate version of his complicated taping I have on many a gamer in my deep stash of his bats. (I even have one other no-name stock model signed by him.) This one is, however, lacking his typical knob markings that were typically a nod to his grandmother or his uniform number but everything else is in the ballpark. Knowing the spring nugget, my research continued.

Michael Zagaris/MLB Photos

I went to one resource for online photo-matching, the publicly available Getty Images photo site, and above is revealing. In that photo, Swisher is holding a taped name-model P72 as he talked to a bat rep (click for a closer look or hit the gallery below). I doubt he placed an order from that company as he didn’t (based on what I’ve seen) use anything other than Louisville Sluggers until later in his career. The image is from Feb. 27, 2004 -- a day after A’s players reported in Phoenix -- so it’s about as early as it gets for that spring. (Why did Swisher use two colors of bats? At that point in his career the switch-hitter used a natural P72 when batting right-handed and then a colored S348 model when hitting lefty. The difference helped him pick them from the rack quickly.)

My bat having no knob markings, a quick tape job and it being a stock model makes me think this was most likely a spring batting practice bat ... but I’ll never know. There are no 2004 game images of him that I found even using a natural bat until later that season -- after he was a September call-up. I’d bet that he could have saved his name-models like what’s seen above for games, but that’s just a guess. Could there have been a different twist? I pondered whether this might be a minor league bat or even a 2003 Arizona Fall League bat -- but finding photos from those things these days is pretty much impossible.

That said, there also was another thought in my head ...

Going back to cardboard, the only place I spotted him with stock bats was on his 2002 Bowman Draft Picks Rookie Card (and its Chrome version) where, yes, that is a P72 pro stock in his left hand on the card back and in his right hand on the card front ... but, alas, the good grain going through the center of the barrel and stamping doesn’t match what’s on my bat. I knew that was a longshot given the years apart and since that was merely a portrait photo shoot that could have been done anywhere, anyway.

I stopped short of getting out a loupe and finding my original slides from that shoot that I also own -- landed from the Topps Vault long, long, long ago -- so I could see if the bat knobs in the photos were taped. (They’re obscured by the card design elements -- you can see the fronts in the gallery below.) If I ever do unearth them from deep in my collection, I’ll definitely take a look -- out of curiosity -- and to make sure once again that the grain on the slide is the same as on the card. (You know, just in case there are Photoshop shenanigans!) Why? I’ve had dumb luck on my side more times than I can count when it comes to memorabilia.

Unlike almost all of my Swisher bats -- even some in this series -- this one is still a mystery and I’m OK with that. The price was right and there’s still a story here ... just nothing ironclad.

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>> See all past Collecting Game-used stories from Buzz here

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