Worth Pro Bats - would love to see, I helped make them.

[oldworth]

Hello,

I would love to see pictures of your old Worth pro baseball bats, regardless of who's they were. My mom was the supervisor of the finishing department there, and I worked there throughout high school and during breaks from college. It was a significant part of my life for many years. I had a hand in making and finishing quite a few myself. Of course I have quite a few, but I just ran into a few on the net, and it brought back a lot of memories.

If anyone has questions about them or how they were made, I'll try my best to answer them.

[harpt]

I have a couple...Rob Deer and Charlie Moore. I really like them. Below is a picture of the Rob Deer.

[oldworth]

I really liked the bigger logos. Everyone started making them bigger from what I heard, to be seen on TV, but MLB issued size restrictions.

[jon_8_us]

Here is pics of my incoming Sheffield rookie bat from 1988:

[jon_8_us]

I'll post better ones when i can take the pictures
jon

[oldworth]

It's kindof odd seeing them. I look at them and see the people who did each part of them. All were made by a small group of people - no more than a dozen.

[thomecollector]

Here's one of my Thome bats. I have only seen 2 of these Worth bats used by Thome. The other one was cracked.

[oldworth]

The name looks familiar to me. A ton of players ordered bats from different manufacturers and may never have used them outside of batting practice. I remember looking on baseball cards for our bars and being disappointed when I would see a player I knew we made bats for using a different brand in all the pics.

The rarest bat I remember making was Michael Jordan's bat. As far as I know, it was the only Wilson branded pro bat ever made. (All Wilson bats were made by Worth)

[metsbats]

Worth bats were very popular with members of the 86 Mets.

I have 3 and in addition to these guys i know the following players used Worth bats too

Dykstra
Foster
Staub
Sisk
Teufel

-David

[woodbat]

Hi,
I have been to the Worth factory in Tullahoma a couple times. There was a gal that, I believe worked in sales, and I used to send her all the cards showing Worth bats used by major league players. Can't remember her name though, this was probably in the late 80's--early 90's. But I sent her a lot of cards. She said she was going to make a display of them at the office. It was about the time you all were thinking about getting got out of the wooden bat business and going to aluminum bats. Was also fascinated watching the gals lacing the softballs...
I only collect Cardinal bats, and have a game Worth bat of Jose Cruz, Randy Hunt, Bryn Smith, and John Tudor.
There was a very interesting article by Tim Lee in the SCD May 17, 1996-page 160-161 on Worth bats. Might be helpful if you had access to ordering and shipping records to share with other folks, could help in dating a bat. I would also be glad to make you a copy of this article..
If you want any photos of the above four bats, email me at woodbat@bellsouth.net and will be glad to email photos to you.
Don Bell
Paris, TN 38242-0446