Cubs top prospect Kris Bryant sends game-used bat to Twitter follower
Rather than make a fan shell out big bucks for a game-used bat on eBay, Cubs top prospect Kris Bryant sent him one for free.
By
Mike Axisa
•
2 min read
After hitting .325/.438/.661 at Double-A and Triple-A and leading the minors with 43 home runs in 2014, Cubs third base prospect Kris Bryant is arguably the best prospect in all of baseball right now. Chicago selected him with the second overall pick in the 2013 draft and he looks every bit the part of a franchise player.
Late last month, a fan named Mike Kennedy found one of Bryant's game-used bats on eBay. Here's the listing. The problem: it's $850. $850! As good as Bryant was this year, that's an outrageous price for a bat from a player who has yet to make his MLB debut.
Before shelling out the $850, Kennedy wanted to make sure the bat was legit. I don't blame him. Kennedy went right to the source and asked Bryant on Twitter if the bat was really his:
@KrisBryant_23 is there anyway I could DM u a link and you could tell me if this looks legit to you? Want to buy it if it was yours. Thanks
— Mike in Vegas (@mk9577) October 31, 2014
Bryant didn't bother to authenticate the listing on eBay. He did one better. He offered to send Kennedy a game-used bat for free:
@mk9577 you don't need to buy it! What do you want? I'll send it to you!
— Kris Bryant (@KrisBryant_23) October 31, 2014
@KrisBryant_23 it was a gu bat ha ha there expensive I wouldn't expect you to do that but I appreciate it. And want one for my pc
— Mike in Vegas (@mk9577) October 31, 2014
@mk9577 850 bucks?! That's ridiculous! I'll send one to you. DM me your address!
— Kris Bryant (@KrisBryant_23) October 31, 2014
Kennedy sent Bryant his address and a few days later, this showed up in the mail:
David Just of the Chicago Sun-Times spoke to Kennedy about the experience:
“I’m just a big fan,” Kennedy said in a phone interview. “And for me I collect cards and then started collecting game-used memorabilia. When you own a bat that was used in a game it’s a piece of history to me. So that’s why I like them. Even 30 years from now here’s this bat that was used by a player. So I just collect. I wasn’t trying to get anything from him. I just wanted to know if it was legit before I bought it. … I was blown away.”
Kennedy, who works as a lighting technician for concerts, told Just he offered Bryant some free concert tickets, but Bryant declined. "I don’t need anything man. You’re a big fan and I appreciate that. Good to have people like you out there," said Bryant to Kennedy in a message on Twitter.
I've been hearing Bryant described as a class act and super-high-character guy since he was in high school five years ago. The evidence just keeps mounting. What a great story.
