I used to LOVE baseball!  More than football if you can imagine that!  Hey, it’s America’s Pastime right?!  Or at least it was.  I was a HUGE San Diego Padres fan growing up.  I have vivid memories of being a 5 year old kid sitting in my garage in Fallbrook, CA (about 45 minutes north of Jack Murphy Stadium where the Padres used to play) listening to Jerry Coleman on Sunday afternoons as my dad and I would tinker on a model car, cleaning the lawnmower or detailing his car.

I still enjoy watching the Padres, and going out to the ballpark. However, football took over the number one sport in my life right around high school when I started playing it.  I was cut from baseball after my frosh year, after having played it since the age of 6 years old.  25 of us made the frosh baseball team, and only 7 of those 25 made the JV team the next year.  And so you have it, I just wasn’t good enough to move on.

I started collecting baseball bats in the late 90s.  It was during college, when I was making a little money, and had some extra income from a car accident I was in.  So, I started buying bats of some of my old favorite players from the Padres: Terry Kennedy, Carmelo Martinez, Benito Santiago, Tony Gwynn!  At one time I had a bat that Tony hit a homerun with!  I regret selling that bat as Gwynn home runs are so rare!! Even more rare, I had the ball too!  It just barely cleared the fence at Jack Murphy, and Tony tracked it down.  It was hit 2985 in his career.  Louisville Slugger made 100 commemorative bats for him to use – 1 for each hit from 2900 to 3000.  Anyhow, I sold that bat, and now regret it!

Thought I would share my collection of bats here.  If you are interested in any of them, let me know.   I was planning on decorating my house with them. But since being married and having kids, they basically have sat in a box in the garage for the last 10 years!  (If you know what I mean!)

I have very good Letters of Authenticity on most of these bats that I can send your way if interested.  Some were simply given to me at games when I asked, I don’t have letters on those obviously.

My two favorites now are the McGwire and the Caminiti ones.  Boy, I LOVED watching Ken Caminiti play so hard for the Padres! Joey Hamilton was a great pitcher for a few years for the Padres.  He broke his bat one game I was at.  I kept an eye on it the entire game, it was just sitting in the dugout in a cubbie. I was sitting in the first row of the stadium, right along the field.  He came up to bat, and was in the on deck circle right in front of me a few innings later.  I said “Mr. Hamilton, HUGE fan of yours. Can I have that bat you broke?”  He didn’t acknowledge me at all.  But a few innings later, between innings, a bat boy brought me the bat. Very, very cool!  I was able to get him to autograph it a few weeks later at Dodger Stadium, and he was very, very cool then.  He said “Man, I couldn’t believe you asked me for that bat!  Who wants a pitcher’s bat?!”  Funny!

A list of my bats to date: