1 Bat, 4 HoFers, 22 Autographs (1993 Signed bat held hostage by a Dodgers fan)

[Crazy O]

I thought this would a cool baseball artifact to share with you all in the depths of this very, very long offseason. This bat is one year older than me! Of very unknown origin...in fact, its a little bizarre. This bat was purchased for TWO DOLLARS at a yard sale, by a ten year old girl...in Sacramento, CA. How a bat like this made its way out there, only to end up in a junk pile, I will never know. Or - even weirder - that she would happen to live with an Orioles fan transplant who would look at this bat and become very, very confused as to how she got it....

Need a little help on 3, 17, and 20!

 

Sure wish we had Jim Palmer or Brady Anderson on here...

1.  Sherman Obando

 

2. Leo Gomez

 

 

3. ???

 

 

4. Brooks Robinson!!!

  

 

5. Ben McDonald

 

 

6. Cal Ripken Jr!

 

 

7. Gregg Olson

 

 

8. Rick Sutcliffe (???)

 

 

9. Johnny Oates

 

10. Paul Carey

 

 

11. Mark McLemore

 

 

12. Mike Mussina 

 

 

13. Todd Frohwirth

 

 

14. Jeff Tacket

 

 

15. Chris Hoiles

 

 

16. Harold Baines! 

 

17. ???

 

 

18. Davey Lopes

19. Jack Voigt

 

 

20. ???

 

 

21.  Mike Devereaux

 

 

22. Harold Reynolds (???)

 

 

 

 

[Aristotelian]

Great find and nice job on the ID's so far. Rick Sutcliffe looks correct. #3 looks like a Jeff. #17 is Palmer. I don't think the last one is Reynolds.

[Aristotelian]

EDIT I don't think 17 is Palmer, sorry. 

[Sports Guy]

Are you sure the signatures are real or at least all the signatures are real?

The Ripken one, in particular, doesn’t look right.

[Sports Guy]

5 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

EDIT I don't think 17 is Palmer, sorry. 

It’s definitely not.

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

Are you sure the signatures are real or at least all the signatures are real?

The Ripken one, in particular, doesn’t look right.

You're right, that does look off. Could 17 be an attempt at Palmer? But who would go through the trouble of faking Sherman Obando? 

[Sports Guy]

17 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

You're right, that does look off. Could 17 be an attempt at Palmer? But who would go through the trouble of faking Sherman Obando? 

Well, its possible that some are real and the “bigger names” were forged in an attempt to sell the bat originally.

[Sports Guy]

Mussina looks right to me.

The R and N in Robinson look off compared to the myriad of signatures I have from Brooks.

Otoh, I don’t know when this was signed by him and maybe as he got older, certain aspects of his signature changed.  The autographs I have from him are all 25+ years old.

[Frobby]

Putting your signature on a rounded object with a magic marker isn’t that easy, so it’s not too surprising if some of the signatures look slightly different than they would on a paper autograph.  

[Number5]

i'm guessing #20 is David Segui.

[Sports Guy]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Putting your signature on a rounded object with a magic marker isn’t that easy, so it’s not too surprising if some of the signatures look slightly different than they would on a paper autograph.  

Some truth to this but I have autographed bats and the signatures generally align with anything else.  I was comparing the ones on the bat here with some baseballs I have...baseballs are also round and they looked different.  The Ripken one really stood out to me.

[Moose Milligan]

Ripken's signature has changed a bit over the years, but that one still looks off.

[Crazy O]

Thanks for the responses/feedback and validation for the guesses lining up to what we came up with!  

 

Certainly a possibility that this is a fake but man...some of these signatures are really good if so.

 

The Cal one is just about the only one I didnt even bother to look up- my brother has a ball he had signed in person and I remember it looking spot on to that. I'll get a pic of that one to compare...

Glad there was some interest to look at though! Makes you wonder (if this is real) how many of these sorts of things are laying around garages...

 

[InsideCoroner]

It’s very cool story and item either way, and if not all then most of these are genuine. Who would bother to put Paul Carey’s signature on a bat, let alone to know that he always referenced a Bible verse with every signature?

[AnythingO's]

This seems to call out for Roy Firestone's expertise