Winter Auction 2015 closing February 7
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/8/2015
By 1965 the great Willie Mays was on auto-pilot - year after year he paused briefly in the middle of the summer to take his place on the NL All-Star team and at the end of the season his name would be found in the top 10 for home runs, RBI and average. As his contemporaries remarked with respectable awe, no player was more consistently excellent year after year as Willie Mays. '65, one of the years this superb game used bat dates to, Mays hit a career high 54 home runs and was voted the National League's Most Valuable Player. He also reached the milestone of 500 career home runs that summer, at the time just the four other men in the history of the game had hit that many. Mays' Hillerich & Bradsby S2 model bat shows outstanding use and has a crack on the back handle. Slight checking from repeated ball contact is found on the back barrel. Many ball and stitch imprints cover the barrel as well as green bat rack paint streaks. A moderate coat of pine tar is still found on the bat's handle. Model number "S2" is stamped into the knob end and Mays' immortal number "24" is hand written in fade black marker. A great Hall of Fame worthy bat from one of the best sluggers to ever play the game. Letter of Authenticity 1B08987 from PSA/DNA who whale graded this bat a GU 8.5.