Corked Bats Reportedly Belonging to Pete Rose Come to Light

↵↵There are few players left in baseball who would really shock me if they were associated with some form of cheating. In fact, the only one that would really make me stand up and take notice is the one who retired last week: Ken Griffey Jr. So consider me not all that surprised after reading Deadspin’s strong bit of reporting today on what is the apparent discovery of multiple corked bats that once belonged to Pete Rose during his chase of the all-time hit mark.↵

↵↵One collector, Bill Schubert, acquired a Mizuno PR4192 -- a bat specially made for Rose during his chase of Ty Cobb -- in 2008 from Sports Investments, a family run sports memorabilia shop based in Cincinnati. Schubert confirmed the bat had been used in game action and then, after inspecting the top of the bat and seeing that it appeared to have something like a drill hole, decided to take it to go through an X-ray. This was the image that was produced. Clearly, there’s something foreign inside the bat.↵

↵↵Three other collectors were also found by Deadspin who had those PR4192 bats with what appear to be a drill hole at the top of their bats. One of those collectors, Steve Mears, took his bat for an X-ray and had a similar result to Schubert, which you can see here.↵

↵↵That Rose, a man who (finally) admitted to betting on baseball, might’ve skirted the rules, just isn’t surprising. Perhaps the only real impact of this development today will be whether it detracts from any sort of steam he’d picked up in an effort to get into the Hall of Fame.↵

↵↵UPDATE: Steve Wolter of the previously mentioned Sports Investments, who has the bat for the 4,192nd hit, says he will not allow it to be X-rayed, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
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