How does one showcase broken things?

Wires.

I'll answer myself - nevermind wire. The whole chrysalization (sp) of a broken bat seems multiply bizarre to me. As in, I wouldn't go there. Talk about religion, now it's baseball. Wait for encantation.

Wires makes sense. Two other things I thought of were:

-Pins, kind of outlining it and keeping it in place (this is assuming you use a standard shadow box which usually has some sort of padded backing).

-Take out the standard shadowbox backing, cut some plywood to size, cover it with fabric of some kind, and then just nail from the back (into the bat pieces).

(I don't see anything worrisome about framing a broken bat.)

This is just me. Id cut the bat so to only preserve about six inches above the hand grip, and maybe 6 inches down from the top. Then Id mount the top and bottom onto a shadow box with a plywood backing. Id mount the bat sections top and bottom , with a screw. (Dont hide the screws, let them be part of the display. Then , in the middle, Id make a small plaque with the relevant info about the date he busted, team n ame , game played against, and his avg. as a hitter (is he any good?).
Then you wouldnt have the splinters from the broken bat. This would become a dust cather in years to come. I suppose anothe way would be to cut the bat as above, and then cut the bat sections sagitally and just glue them to the backing with an epoxy.

On second thought, pins might work for drumsticks but I don't think they'd support the weight of bat pieces.

(Sozlet's playing softball and has only used aluminum bats but is thrilled when she gets a big hit, I can imagine how fun it'd be to break a bat.)

Why frame it?

You could mount it to his wall with some kind of backing that will raise it from the wall and just place it a few centimeters apart so that you can see the crack in the center.
Take a frame that is big enough and mount that to the wall around it. No glass , no nothing..

Cable ties. See if you can get UV protected ties.

paint/dip the broken ends of the bat into varnish, epoxy resin or similar to keep the splinters all held together
Drill holes into the the backing of the shadow box thread the cable ties around the bat sections through the holes and clip together behind the backing.
bat sections on an angle with, as Fm said, a plaque with details of the time and place etc
Something similar to this...

/ [] \

it'll be worth a mint when he makes the majors.

I do. It's the start of framing your whole life routinely.. This is something of a fault of mine. I don't mean that you shouldn't annotate it, take a photo, work up some memories, but don't make life a shrine.

depends on how handy the mister may be.

piece of pine, rout the edges, paint or stain, run screws from the backside into the bat, add plaque...

(is it shattered? that is the best, 2 pieces)

You could also keep it in a box. Perspective.

You or the hubby could easily make something using a bat-sized piece of stained wood. Use a router to give it a fancy edging, then use J-hooks or L-hooks strategically placed to mount the bat on them. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could have a metal plate made with the date, and all the game/player statistics. Maybe take a nice photo of Mo in his baseball uniform to add as a background photo on the wood.

The whole thing could then be hung in his room or whatever area you want to designate as the family's trophy spot.



If you'd rather go the store-bought route, something like this is what you are looking for:



They're available on this website for $135 and up.

http://www.xbats.com/products.asp?cat=36


Here's an expensive example of what I was trying to describe as a display case for a grouped collection:

This website has several other good ideas:

http://sandlotkidbatco.com/baseball-accessories1.html

This shows the J-hook concept I was describing:



This one is under $40.

When bats brek theyve flexed beyond their elastic limit and the ash just shatters. If thye bat broke down low, the handle is probably a piece of jagged edged wood and the top is a big butted section also. If the bat broke hih, it probably broke WITH the grain which runs at a slight angle .

Its not in one piece.
Breaking bats in a grounder is fun cause you usally send some chunk of bat into the infield.

What's the big zero? If you disagree, just say so.

I live with my accumulated treasures and think not every passage needs to be framed and walled. All of you who disagree with me will have to figure out what to do with all this stuff (broken bats?) later, when your houses are museums. I'm certainly not against saving, but the memorialization is near frightening to me, who lives with a thicket of memorabilia.

Each to their own, but watch out.

to avoid further involvement in anyones delusions I will put you back to 1.

(just to clarify, I could not do that if I had zeroed you...)

I figure next is the bat room.
and the drum room, and so on, with the next room to be decided.
I don't care about being knocked to zero, though I noticed it, and have little delusion about memorabilia.

I've spent a lot of effort saving stuff, and now I'm looking at why the hell did I do that.. I'm not even sure it's a favor to a child. To be appreciated, yes, that is vital for the child , but an elaborate framed display of something like a broken bat to be treasured for a century, I'm questioning that. Momentarily wired flying half bats, I can get, if they're tossed after the display. A photo, ok. But life is not a shrine.

I get it that a child who gets no notice needs notice, even with a broken bat.

A child like Mo has an immense amount of notice.

Soon to be saving broken drum sticks. Criminy.

Get the boy a box.

Sometimes a bat is just a bat.

I don't see it as a big deal and the criticism seems outsized. Options: bare walls or walls with interesting decorations on them. These both strike me as interesting decorations without needing to carry all the baggage you're ascribing to them.