Jose Cardenal dismissed by Nationals
October 8th, 2009 | by adamburnett |The Washington Nationals dismissed senior advisor Jose Cardenal after 5 years with the organization. Cardenal played in the majors from 1963-1980 for 9 teams including 53 games with the Brewers in 1971. He also served on Joe Torre’s coaching staff with the Yankees. He said that he will now work to help players from Cuba to come and play in the United States legally. His biggest contribution to the game so far is his bat, the Louisville Slugger C271 Model.
After researching the history of the bat, I found that Cardenal received some bats from George Altman a former player in the Major Leagues and Japan around the late 60’s-early 70’s. In 2003, He talked to the Washington Post about the bat. “It was a well-balanced bat. The handle was not too skinny. The barrel was perfect.” Cardenal asked Louisville Slugger to replicate the bat, and thus was born the C271 model — perhaps the most consistently popular bat in the major leagues for more than three decades. In Louisville Slugger nomenclature, the letter refers to the last name of the player it is designed for, and the number refers to how many players with that initial have inspired bats. Thus, Cardenal was the 271st player with the letter C to have a bat named for him — but none have had the staying power of the C271. Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez are among the players who have used the C271 model as their prime bat.
