By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor

PSA is helping bring order to the chaos of game-used baseball bat collecting with a new resource for collectors based on information collected when the company has authenticated and graded pieces from the past.

The company has created a website called PSAProBatFacts.com, which is a reference resource showing models and types of bats used by past players. In its initial debut, there are specs and images for bats from 73 members of the Hall of Fame and 34 other notable players who are often collected.

“Professional model bats are among the most desirable items in the entire sports memorabilia hobby,” said Joe Orlando, PSA President, in a prepared release. “They are tangible pieces of sports history, used by the players to create that history.”

The pages and images also show the particular ways that players often personalize, tape or mark their bats for use — key elements when determining whether a bat truly was used.

“We carefully selected the images of bats you’ll see,” Orlando said. “When possible, it is important to showcase quality illustrations of the specific player characteristics that are mentioned on each player’s page.  Many of the bats pictured are among the finest examples known.”

Orlando said there will be other players added to the site soon.

“We’ll be expanding and adding many more current and former players, which also includes Hall of Fame members, in the coming weeks.”

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor

Panini America‘s next baseball-focused brand, Cooperstown, will showcase not only the greatest in the game but also the best around them.

And that’s not all as Cooperstown also will showcase Hall of Famers who served in the military via a 10-card insert set called With Honors, a lineup that will include the likes of Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Whitey Ford and more  when it arrives in late August.

Each of the 10 cards will tell the player’s story away from the field, noting which wars the player served in as well as more about his story.

The lineup includes military photography and will also include Bobby Doerr, Bob Feller, Charlie Gehringer, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg, Stan Musial and Johnny Mize in addition to those previously mentioned.

In other news about the product, a preliminary checklist shows 30 cut signature subjects will be in Cooperstown’s Famed Cuts set with as many as 61 copies of some cards made and other players being 1/1s. Some of the notables there will include Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Lee MacPhail, Carl Hubbell, Don Drysdale and Lefty Gomez. 

The preliminary checklist for the Famous Moments Signatures insert, which will showcase autographs of players with artifacts tied to achievements at the Hall, will include Don Larsen, Carl Yastrzemski, Maury Wills, Denny McLain, Brooks Robinson, Shawn Green, Don Mattingly, Tom Seaver, Jeff Kent and Nate Colbert, who, for example, hit five home runs in a doubleheader on Aug. 1, 1972.

The 100-card Cooperstown Signatures set will be largely on-card sigs, according to the preliminary checklist, save for a handful of Hall of Famers who are no longer alive (Gary Carter, Dick Williams, George Kell, Robin Roberts, Sparky Anderson and Bob Feller who are signed on stickers). Most living Hall of Famers are signing for the set with notables in this one tentatively include Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench, Ford, Tony Gwynn, Reggie Jackson, Ernie Banks, Willie McCovey, Frank Robinson, Yaz, Cal Ripken Jr., Nolan Ryan Tom Seaver and Rickey Henderson. Some players appear on more than one autograph card to represent additional teams.

For an update on the non-player signers, click here.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor

TRISTAR‘s next baseball card line will be twice as nice for some collectors who rip into the cut-autograph product.

How? Every 24-box case of 2012 TRISTAR SignaCuts will include 10 dual-sided cut cards when it arrives at the National Sports Collectors Convention Aug. 1-5 before a traditional hobby-wide release on Aug. 15.

Among the notable pairings? Babe Ruth and Charlie Root, who served up the “called shot” in the 1932 World Series for one. Jimmie Foxx and actor Tom Hanks, whose character Jimmy Dugan in “A League of Their Own” was based on Foxx, is another. A third — of many in the product — will pair Nolan Ryan and Josh Hamilton, while another will pair New York Yankees legend Lou Gehrig with legendary stadium voice Bob Sheppard.

Every case will include two Hall of Fame autographs, three dual-sided Hall of Famer autos, 12 standard cuts and seven dual cuts.  As for serial-numbering, each will include two 1/1s, eight cards limited to five copies and seven limited to 10. Each pack contains just one cut card.

The product will not include any cards numbered to more than 25 and each will be encased in a tamper-proof TRISTAR-sealed case.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.