A rare 1906 era banana bat owned by the family of major leaguer Billy Sullivan is coming up for auction this spring at Robert Edwards Auctions.
Billy Sullivan at age 95 in 1965 with his banana bat given to him by inventor Emil Kinst.
The idea behind this patented bat was to enable the batter to more easily hit the ball to the side of the field he wished and also keep the ball in play instead of foul tipping. This was accomplished by curving the barrel so the ball could be struck at different angles and also running longitudinal grooves along both the handle and barrel to expand the sweet spot of the bat. The concave section was also flattened somewhat to gain a broader hitting surface. Kinst made 400 of the bats and gave them out to various players in an attempt to have them accepted. The MLB rules committee quickly put a stop to that and would not approve the bat for use. Being a woodworker, I was interested in this design because it couldn't be turned on a lathe like a normal bat. Today a bat like that could be made in minutes with computer assisted machinery. Back in 1906, there may have been machinery with specialized molding heads to shape curved blanks with maybe the handle and knob touched up on a lathe. There is a book, "Banana Bats and Ding Dong Balls" by Dan Gutman that has other wacky sports inventions.