It's a bat I have owned this since the death of my former business partner and I suspect it will stay with me forever. I tried to market it for significant money so the family could benefit, but couldn't find anyone who was interested...so I bought it for my personal collection. Here's the story.
In the mid 1980s I owned a ball card shop. The guy who was the batboy the night of the Edmead incident brought in the bat to my partner...my partner always genuinely loved local baseball. The batboy (who we knew, of course, he was a local fixture) sold it to him as much as anything to pass it on to someone who would appreciate it.
The "Edmead incident" took place on August 22, in a home game at Salem's Municipal Field against Rocky Mount. Edmead scored the Pirates first run after swiping both second and third base to give him 61 steals for the season. Everything seemed fine, but an otherwise routine pop fly to short right in the top of the sixth changed everything.
Alfredo Edmead, raced in for the ball from right, while Cruz ran out from his second base position. Edmead dove in an effort to make the catch, but his head collided with Pablo Cruz' knee, and both men went down in a heap. Edmead had been knocked unconscious, and some of the first players on the scene reported that he wasn't breathing. The team trainer was able to revive him, but Edmead was rushed to Lewis-Gale hospital.
The game resumed, minus Cruz, who'd hurt his knee badly, but was too upset about Edmead to accept treatment. "My God. My brother, my little brother," Cruz lamented later that day. "He always tried so hard. I didn't see him."
Though the players on both teams weren't told until the game was finished, Salem's general manager called from the hospital just an hour after the impact with three sad words: "Alfredo is dead".
Edmead died from massive brain injuries, shocking his teammates, and nearly everyone who heard the news. "I never heard of anything like this before," said Pirates farm director Harding Peterson. "We lost not only one of the best young prospects in our organization. We lost a fine young gentleman. It's truly hard to believe."
This is the bat he used that night. It's a pretty macabre thing to own.
The local baseball hall of fame thinks they have the bat he used that night, but it's not...I'm pretty sure it's another of his bats, but how do you prove provenance in a case like this? For that matter, what's the point?
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