I collect Williams game used items as well as lots of other vintage GU stuff, but once in a while you just have to scratch your head and realize that vintage GU attribution is one part science and one part bulls**t. Lets call this story - "one bat boy is lying."

Here is the deal - Back in 2007, Mastro/Legendary auctioned off Ted's 400th HR bat for $100,000 with "ironclad" provenance from Johnny Orlando, the boston clubby/batboy/equipment guy who said he took the bat and secured it from the HR till selling it. MEARS rated 10, Here is the listing for that bat:

http://www.legendaryauctions.com/Lot...px?lotid=73103

Here is the excellent MEARS report on the bat:

http://www.mearsonline.com/index.php...t01returnid=98

Now here is the fun part...The new Heritage Auction has a new version of the 400th Home Run Bat with a new story. Here we have a different batboy saying that Ted hit the home run with teammate Billy Goodman's bat by mistake and that Ted gave the bat to a team coach and later signed it as well as a document stating he used that bat to hit the HR. Worse yet, the "new" bat has goodman's number on the knob and a piece of tape over the name plate so you cannot tell if this was a bat made for Williams originally. It is a W166, which may have been a pro stoic bat anyway at that time, not ordered by Ted. Here is the new listing:

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleN...&lotIdNo=27001

So if you take a look at both, which one do you believe and why? There is lots of interesting bat info in these pages, so you might learn something by reading. All I know is that whomever paid $100K back in 2007 is not pleased.

To be clear, I think Heritage is very open about the conflict here and I am not faulting them or Legendary in any way.

Matt