Tweet
There is currently a Louisville Slugger B396 Billy Butler block letter bat for sale on the secondary market offered by a baseball card store based out of Overland Park, Kansas. The seller purchased the bat at 2011 Royals Fan Fest and had the bat for sale at his vendor table at Fan Fest.
I recall watching the 2010 Mother's Day game very closely as I was hoping to purchase the game used Butler bat. And I am pretty certain that Billy, as usual, used exclusively Phoenix model bats in that game. I just re-watched the condensed game highlights on mlb.tv and 2 of the 4 at bats clearly show Billy using Phoenix bats with medium pine tar, though they did not have footage in the condensed game of the first and last at bats.
The Louisville bat that is for sale is one of the two pink bats issued to Billy by Louisville, but I have no reason to believe the bat saw any game use. The seller told me the bat may have been used as far back as 2007 and said it "shows game use", but didn't explain the use shown. Regarding the "as far back as 2007, the bat has a manufacture date stamped in the knob of 4/26/10.
The bat shows no trace of pine tar and no ball marks. When I physically inspected the bat at Fan Fest, I saw zero signs of use. There are a couple of scuffs on the surface of the bat, that could possibly be bat rack marks, but could just have easily been caused by careless handling afterwards.
Anyhow, for anybody considering it, I believe this bat was issued to Billy, but I am nearly 100% certain it was not game used.
I recall watching the 2010 Mother's Day game very closely as I was hoping to purchase the game used Butler bat. And I am pretty certain that Billy, as usual, used exclusively Phoenix model bats in that game. I just re-watched the condensed game highlights on mlb.tv and 2 of the 4 at bats clearly show Billy using Phoenix bats with medium pine tar, though they did not have footage in the condensed game of the first and last at bats.
The Louisville bat that is for sale is one of the two pink bats issued to Billy by Louisville, but I have no reason to believe the bat saw any game use. The seller told me the bat may have been used as far back as 2007 and said it "shows game use", but didn't explain the use shown. Regarding the "as far back as 2007, the bat has a manufacture date stamped in the knob of 4/26/10.
The bat shows no trace of pine tar and no ball marks. When I physically inspected the bat at Fan Fest, I saw zero signs of use. There are a couple of scuffs on the surface of the bat, that could possibly be bat rack marks, but could just have easily been caused by careless handling afterwards.
Anyhow, for anybody considering it, I believe this bat was issued to Billy, but I am nearly 100% certain it was not game used.
Comment