Hi Jim--

In terms of Hillerich & Bradsby / Louisville Slugger historical information, labeling information, and the COMPLETE H & B shipping records for every Major League Hall of Fame player, the new book will eclipse any book on the market. Virtually any information about H & B / Louisville Slugger that is of significance to the game-used bat collector is included in this book, with additional information such as an uopdated glossary and definitions of terms. This book will set the standard for the hobby.

For the first (and only) time, collectors will have complete information at their disposal to make informed decisions about H & B bats that they are considering adding to their collection. For Hall of Fame players, collectors will now be in possession of every shipping record in existence for each player. This book will enable a collector to double check previous authentications of bats currently in their collections to determine the accuracy of those authentications. The impact of that alone will be significant and have far-reaching effects throughout the hobby and for many individual collectors See the recent threads on the Tris Speaker bat and the Mickey Mantle bat to better understand the implications of the dissemination of this information.

Books previously and currently on the market, in my opinion, will still have relevance to bat collectors. The original 1995 book BATS -- HILLERICH & BRADSBY and ADIRONDACK 1950-1994 (Vince Malta, Ron Fox, Bill Riddell, and Mike Specht) was a landmark publication and many of the photographs and text information, including the sections on Adirondack / Rawlings game used bats, remain relevant and invaluable. BATS should certainly be included in any game used bat reference library, as should the 2001 publication MASTRONET GUIDE (Dave Bushing and Dan Knoll) and the 2002 book CRACK OF THE BAT (Bob Hill).

Good Luck in future collecting.

Mike Jackitout7@aol.com