[Scott Garner]

I'm thrilled to have finished a 14 year project that I have been working on as part of my advanced Nolan Ryan collection.

Background story:
In 1998 I visited a baseball card store in Seattle named U-Trading on a business trip. Looking around the store I spotted a barrel of game used bats. While looking through them, I discovered a game used bat from Nolan Ryan's 7th no-hit catcher Mike Stanley. I bought the bat for $25 and was hooked! I was determined to find the game used bats of all 7 of Ryan's no-hit catchers and then get them signed and inscribed.

The photo below shows (from top to bottom) the game bats of Jeff Torborg (1st no-hitter), Art Kusnyer (2nd no-hitter), Tom Egan (3rd no-hitter). Ellie Rodriguez (4th no-hitter), Alan Ashby (5th no-hitter), John Russell (6th no-hitter) and Mike Stanley (7th no-hitter).

Anyway, it was no small challenge to find the bats of some of Ryan's catchers from the Angels era. Getting them all signed and inscribed provided an additional challenge. Some of the stories behind this are laughable.

My best story surrounds getting Ryan's 3rd no-hitter catcher, Tom Egan, to sign his bat at his house in Tempe, AZ while attending a friend's wedding a number of years ago. I had Egan's address from Smalling's book of baseball player addresses. I decided to drive over to Egan's house and attempt to catch him in the evening. I rang the doorbell and his wife answers the door. I introduced myself and asked if Tom was at home and whether he might be willing to sign the game used bat for me. She laughed and then called out "Hey Tom, stop taking out the trash. You have someone that would like you to sign an autograph for him!" Anyway, he answered the door in bare feet, shorts, tee shirt with a beer in his hand. All 3 of us got a chuckle at the humor of the scene. Egan proceeded to walk me out to my rental car a sign and inscribe his game used bat and a game ball from Ryan's 3rd no-hitter. One cool side note was that he noted that the LS game bat that I had him sign was quite rare as it was his preferred model when he 1st broke into the majors. He mentioned that his minor league coach HOF Eddie Matthews recommended this LS model to him. Egan said that he had the exact model bat sitting in his office. All in all, it was a terrific experiance, and one that I will certainly never forget.

Finding Ryan's 2nd no-hit catcher Art Kusnyer's bat provided a tremendous challenge, but thanks to my close friend Tom Duino I finally found one about two years ago. Kusnyer just signed the bat for me in Chicago last week.

Mission accomplished!