6/10 01:27: On a side note, the bat that Rose used for his final hit, number 4,256, is being auctioned by Lelands.com, and according to the Associated Press, it has not been checked for cork.

The final hit occurred off of San Francisco Giant’s Greg Minton on August 14, 1986.

Lelands.com president Mike Heffner believes the bat could be sold for close to $1.3 million – the price that was paid for a bat that Babe Ruth used to hit his first home run.

6/8 10:43: Deadspin has an x-ray of what appears to be a Pete Rose Mizuno PR4192 bat used in his 1985 campaign to become the MLB all-time hits leader. The x-ray is a picture of a bat with a foreign material, about 6 inches long and a diameter of a nickel.

The article goes on to talk about Rose selling much of his memorabilia during the season to pay off his gambling debt. The bat in the picture is the not bat used to break Ty Cobb’s record of 4191 hits, but it is believed to be the one used during a series in July 1985 against the Philadelphia Phillies (he went 1-for-8).

The article says that rumors of Rose using corked bats date back nearly a decade, and he has denied such cheating methods, however he denied for years that he bet on baseball, and we all know where that went. On a side note, MythBusters said that a ball coming off a corked bat is slower, so cheaters have only been cheating themselves.