Traces of red captured in wood grain?

[CampWest]

Picked up this late 80s gamer, its an ash bat with no finish. There are a few places on the barrel where there are traces of red. The red is clearly not ink transfer, clearly not a rack mark. Under a magnifying glass (or on the screen after using a 1x1 macro lens) the red looks like little hairs. Has anyone ever seen this before? Is it possible that these are little pieces of red baseball laces that got pulled out by the wood grain?

Observe that unlike an ink mark which shows up on the non-grain surface, these red traces are only appearing on the grain, not the smooth surface.

Thanks for your thoughts

[lakeerie92]

Re: Traces of red captured in wood grain?

Definitely from the laces. I had two Josh Hamilton bats that had a large amount of red stitching in the grain and some of it matched up with seam marks.