Sammy Sosa’s Corked Bat Swings For Fence On Auction Block
With a little over 9 days remaining in a month long marathon auction, a notorious bat owned by a disgraced slugger fastly approaches $10,000. On June 3rd, 2003 Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa was ejected from a game against the Devil Rays when it was discovered that the bat Slammin' Sammy was swinging for the Wrigley Field ivy with contained a small piece of cork.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, a corked bat is created when someone inserts a small piece of cork near the sweet spot of a baseball bat in order to illegally lighten the weight of the bat, which in theory quickens a player's swing and creates an extra pop when bat meets ball. The impact of corking a bat is debatable, but there is zero debate that it is one of the game's cardinal sins.
On October 1st, the Sosa corked bat hit the auction block via Schulte Auctions, an online auction house. Nearly 3 weeks and 29 bids later, the Sosa corked bat currently sits at $8,945 with 9 days, 6 hours, and 32 minutes to go. There's no telling how high the auction will go, especially if a flurry of last second bidders are waiting until the final minutes of the auction to place their bids.
Perhaps even more interesting than the auction itself is the story of how the bat found it's way to the auction block to begin with. For starters, the bat is actually 1/2 of the bat Sosa used that fatefull day at Wrigley Field.
The bat's knob as well as a large part of the handle were confiscated by Major League Baseball during the investigation. Oddly, the remainder of the cracked bat was found by former Chicago Cubs relief pitcher Mike Remlinger during the commotion, in which Remlinger picked up a portion of the bat that had flown into a corridor between the dugout and clubhouse and placed it in a fishing case above his locker. The bat comes with a letter signed by Mike Remlinger asserting the authenticity of the bat and it's origins, which will no doubt boost both the bat's value as well as it's mythology. What baseball fan doesn't love a great story?
The auction is set to come to close on October 31st, 2010 at 9:15 EST. The 1/2 bat comes with a letter signed by Mike Remlinger and Ray Schulte of Schulte Auctions as well as documentation of the bat's authenticity from PSA/DNA, one of the industries most respected authenticators.
Click here to visit the Auction's official webpage.
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