Why no bats on market from Ripken's last season?

[cjclong]

Has anyone seen any bats from Cal Ripken's last year in 2001 on the market? I have seen a number from the late 1880s and early 1990's but virtually none from his last year in 2001 and I wondered if there was any particular reason there don't seem to be any around? Maybe they are out there but I am not seeing them.

[orioles03]

i sold one on ebay to forum member mr miracle it was from his last week playing it had a piece of tape on it which said stoped using afer 10-1-2001 written on the tape i believe the bat was cracked

[suave1477]

[quote=cjclong;84225]Has anyone seen any bats from Cal Ripken's last year in 2001 on the market? I have seen a number from the late 1880s and early 1990's quote]

Wow he truly was Ironman playing for over a 100 years lol lol

Im sorry I couldnt resist lol

[Vintagedeputy]

doesnt Cal have a secret vault with all his old bats and they have tape markings on them indicating when he used them?

[cjclong]

Yeah, those 1880's bats are pretty rare.Guess I was looking for those in the wrong century.

[mr.miracle]

Orioles03 Did in fact sell me a great bat. It is a perfect Ripken Bat from Cal's final week of his career. My understanding is several factors. We know Cal was very protective of his game used gear throughout his career but especially over the final few years. You simply see very, very few legit gamers from not only his final year but from the labeling period of 98 -01 his final year.

Cal during his final seasons exclusively shared a locker room with Brady Anderson or at least that is my understanding. I have heard he kept this locker room locked up at all times so that nothing walked out of the clubhouse.

Since 2001 was his final season, my guess is that he really kept a close eye on everything and basically everything from that final year is in his possession or was shipped to Cooperstown. The bat that Orioles03 sold me is in fact the ONLY legit 2001 gamer that I have ever seen. In fact, all of the other bats from that labeling period dated to 98 or 99 through 2000-01 when the new labeling style with the MLB hologram went into affect but not to the 2001 season when not only the MLB hologram appeared on the bats but the TPX logo appeared on LS bats.

Thanks

[Carlevv]

Cal gave me a bat in 2001 after he broke it during a game. Earlier that year he broke a bat and i asked him for it. He told me he couldnt give it away because he "utilized them for auctions". I guess the second time he felt bad for me so he gave it up. Cal was very tight with his stuff that year. The new stuff not so much but the stuff he used he practically has GPS on it.

[allstarsplus]

doesnt Cal have a secret vault with all his old bats and they have tape markings on them indicating when he used them?

Jim - I don't know if it is a secret vault, but one of Cal's employees called it his "storage" room.

It seemed to me that the last few years of Cal's career we saw less and less bats out there, but we seemed to see a lot of jerseys (how many were real???)

[mr.miracle]

Carlevv:

Any ideas what Auctions he was talking about? I have never seen anything from Cal's final season at any major auction and at least up to this point seven years after he retired, Ironclad is still not running any of his game used stuff. I emailed them about two weeks ago and asked them if they thought that they would have any Ripken game used items in their upcoming first ever high end auction in July and the response I received was that they were hoping to get a couple of game used bats directly from Cal. I remember sometime last summer I spoke to someone at Ironclad and they claimed that they were going to go over to Cal's house and go through the secret bat vaults and inventory the game used items and in the future planned to sell it through Ironclad. I will believe that when I see it.

Thanks

[metsbats]

Interesting thread.

Not to hijack this thread but the same can be said regarding Wade Boggs legit gamers from 90-92 the last three years with the BoSox. Most of the Boggs gamers out there are either Yankees, Rays or pre 1990 bats.

You dont come across may 90-92 Boggs gamers.

David