This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/7/2014
NOTE: This bat was last sold at auction in December, 2013 for $183,500.Just two years removed from breaking major league baseball’s color barrier, Jackie Robinson continued to obliterate any lingering notions that black players could or should not compete on baseball’s biggest stage. In 1949, after two admittedly noteworthy campaigns batting .292 and .296, 30-year-old Jackie Robinson turned the baseball landscape on its ear, leading the league with a whopping .342 batting average and decorating that gaudy number with 124 runs batted in and a league leading 37 stolen bases. Not since Hughie Jennings in 1896 had any player managed more than 120 RBI with less than 20 home runs. Not surprisingly, he won the National League's Most Valuable Player Award as he led the Dodgers into the World Series for the second time in three seasons.
Utilized by baseball’s great pioneer during his most heralded season, this spectacular Hillerich & Bradsby Model S100 ash bat measures 34 1/2 inches and weighs 33 ounces. With deep and distinctive center brand and barrel stampings, including Jackie Robinson’s facsimile autograph and block-lettered "Louisville Slugger," the bat exhibits evidence of heavy use and has a crack on the handle that has been repaired. Some checking (grain swelling) from repeated ball contact is visible on the left and back barrel and there are a few slivers missing from the back barrel. Many ball marks are visible on the right, left and back barrel, and cleat marks can be seen on the left barrel; also visible on the bat are green bat-rack streaks. In accordance with official Louisville Slugger records of Robinson's bat ordering history, S100 models of this length were ordered by Robinson only during the 1949 campaign (three times). To date, this one of only two Jackie Robinson game used bats that can be definitively documented as having been used during his 1949 MVP season. As such, it stands among the finest Jackie Robinson game used artifacts known.
Comes with a LOA from John Taube of PSA/DNA (GU 9).