Collecting Game-used: A bat with tons of use ... and mystery

Normally with items I've collected for this Collecting Game-used series what you see above is an image of an item in use with definitive photo-matched proof that the item I've found was in Player X's hands on X date.

In this case? Well, this 2014 Topps Alex Avila card shows him with a bat that could be the one I have ... or it may not be. There's no definitive proof here, but the start of the wear and tear on the top of the bat -- cropped off on the card -- that can be seen on this card's original photo taken by MLB Photos' Mark Cunningham on Aug. 3, 2013, in Detroit could be the start of things.

Why do I say could? Like many of Avila's sticks, my bat got used and abused. Like really used and abused. I'm not sure what his routines are or whether his best bats got used for all aspects of play (games and BP) but the bat I landed earlier this year was absolutely mashed -- and it's unlike any I have ever seen in person or have in my stash. It's also a bat that could have survived the off-season, too, based on images I have examined from July 30, 2013, and forward. Why do I say that? Well, that's this merely this bat's born-on factory date.

Keep reading to see the details in this month's CGU piece.

THE BASICS ...
The Bat: Alex Avila game-used bat -- not photo-matched -- Louisville slugger C271 is factory stamped "07/30/13"
Watch it in action: Not this time

This set of logos used to be on the barrel of this bat. They are long gone now.

What's Buzz-worthy: The barrel stamping for this Louisville Slugger is a style that wasn't used that long -- I've seen Avila bats in 2014 that revert to the typical styles seen often if you examine game-used -- and that's a big way I could try to photo-match this one (beginning with any games after July 30). Very few pics on the Getty Images app presented anything likely, though. Why? Well, the former Tigers catcher wasn't photographed as much as other players on the team. Atop that, I also noticed that Avila actually used a few other players' bats for the final stretch and even into the postseason (Andy Dirks and Austin Jackson models for sure) in addition to some of his own -- but older styles beyond this type.

Avila marks all of his bats pretty consistently -- his uniform number, an X and a dot inside the cupping and the same on the knob. Everything on this bat and in photos on black bats is done in silver ink and the location of the "1" in "13" was in nearly identical knob spots as you can see on the image below (with the silver ink worn off/faded over time with use on my bat). I found several bat knob photos that could have matched mine, but I couldn't say 100-percent that it was my bat based on that and damage from use. Speaking of that, this bat has so much wear the paint is gone from the barrel from so many connecting shots. That's wood showing, not dirt, and it's so extensive that the four icons beside the MLB logo are nearly all gone. (You can see what it used to look like at above right.) It's also got enough cleat marks to make you wonder if Avila had termites with his spikes feasting on some maple at all times. It's crazy. The bat donut was a constant presence here, too, as it's left a ring that is also among the gnarliest I've ever seen on a bat nearly 360 degrees around. (Most bats I've seen have the surface indention but not paint loss.) All this damage, plus the price, made this one extra appealing and it's the first piece I have for him in my school ties part of my collection.

With nothing conclusive from 2013 photos, I turned to other details (anecdotes) to help me narrow any photo searches. The eBayer I got this from said it was given to him at a Tigers spring game ... so that would push its use to the following season -- or at least its travels -- and the seller was based in Lakeland, Fla., where the team played so that narrowed things a bit. So I checked 2014 photos and found even more images of Avila using demolished bats like this one -- so mangled I was convinced mine was in there somewhere -- but the marking locations didn't match anything definitively and you'd think with this much wear you could be able to match something. (Unless, of course, there was new damage atop old damage over and over and over so bats changed over time.) I have included a few of the publicly viewable Getty preview images in the gallery below where you can see the knob ink and wear on his bats -- all remarkably similar to mine but nothing an ironclad match. (One is flipped so you can click and see the knobs easily on a larger view.)

A potential match here is still the photo that appears on the Topps card from the 2013 season. However, that's when the bat was very fresh, so I could be imagining some of that damage up top on mine. It's not conclusive, though. Another weird part about all of this? All of the 2014 photos that look just like this bat were from after spring training that year, so ... could this bat have somehow been around even longer and given away in 2015? It seems possible as that was his last spring with the Tigers. Another sign of a longer life? The seller also included a 2014 Allen & Ginter card that Avila signed and that set didn't arrive until sometime in July 2014. (Again, after spring training.) There's no doubt that this bat has plenty of use -- it's unquestionably game-used and a nice piece for the price of less than two blaster boxes at suggested retail price -- but there's no MLB Authentication sticker to solve my mystery. The quest for a search is part of the fun with collecting game-used pieces ... and this search remains wide open.

>> See all past Collecting Game-used stories from Buzz here

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