A super intelligent consummate “Baseball Man” Miller Huggins is best known as the manager of the New York Yankees presiding over the team’s first dynasty run and the man charged with keeping Babe Ruth in line. Diminutive in size (5’6”) but large in scale of character Huggins was an overachiever as an undersized second baseman who earned the respect of his peers tagging him with nicknames like “Mighty Mite” “Rabbit” and “Little Everywhere.” Huggins made his big league debut with the Cincinnati Reds in 1904 and was a player/manager for the St. Louis Cardinals during the latter part of his playing career before becoming a full-time manager with Yankees in 1918. His Yankees teams won six pennants and three World Series from 1921-1929 and Huggins was honored with the first monument in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park placing it in front of the flagpole in centerfield on May 30, 1932 less than three years after he died towards the end of the 1929 season.

     This club-like Hillerich & Bradsby bat was issued to Huggins when he still a feisty second sacker and player/manager for the Cardinals in 1915 and contains his name and bat order return date: “Miller Huggins on 8-5-15” written in vintage grease pencil along the barrel although some of the writing has worn off by the ball marks surrounding the barrel which has been sanded and planed to receive the factory side writing. A common practice from the teens to the early 1940s, players would often send a preferred model back to the factory as part of their request to receive more of the same model. Huggins name and return date on this circa 1915 model H38 serve as undeniable provenance of the bat which also has Huggins name branded into its barrel as well as the barrel end and knob end which also contain the model number. This thick, un-cracked 31.5-inch, ash club weighs in at a hefty 36.4 ounces with two small chips removed from the knob. Some checking and grain swelling is visible on the left barrel The bat was also vault marked with its model name and number since its return to the Louisville Slugger factory by Huggins in order to serve as a template for future orders.

     This litany of identifying markers provides the bat with extraordinary historical provenance and combined with its exemplary game use and overall excellent condition give it an outstanding PSA/DNA 10 grade and comes with a lengthy PSA/DNA LOA certification #1B09949.

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