This Richie Sexson gamer has no discernable date stamp on the knob, but I want to date it to 1999, and here's my reasoning.



The guy I bought it from, in 2004, stated that he knew for sure that the "30" indicated that Sexson had hit HR #30 with this bat...and I can't think of anything else it could mean, really. The only question is whether that would have been his 30th career HR, or the 30th in whatever season it was used.

I tend to think the latter is more likely, but either way, it had to have been 1999, because Sexson hit his 30th career HR in '99, and that was also the only year that he hit at least 30 home runs with Cleveland. (The '44', which is also on the knob, was his Cleveland number; he wore "11" in Milwaukee and Arizona, and didn't wear '44' again till the year after I bought the bat.)

I wanted to get your input on whether you thought this was a reasonable deduction, as far as dating the bat.

Here are some photos of the ball marks. The thing is just hammered with use. If you've got, or have seen, other Sexson bats, is this consistent with his other gamers?





Aside from the slight deadwood around and under all the ball marks, there's a thin crack that goes across the entire end of the barrel, and extends down about two inches on one side. Some players seem to be prone to causing this particular type of damage; a great number of Danny Bautista's bats, for instance, have that barrel end crack.

And finally, the tape job. I've located an action photo or two of Sexson batting, and as nearly as I can tell this tape job is very consistent with the way he tapes them up.