Where have you gone, Joe Pepitone?

I am a lifer Red Sox fan, but growing up, I couldn't help but pay attention to the Yankees. The Olde Towne Team and the Bronx Bombers weren't really much in terms of rivals in my early baseball-watching days. The Red Sox were regular cellar dwellers; the Yankees were regular World Series Champions.

In fact, as an American League loyalist, I always felt compelled to root for the Yankees in the World Series. 

I wasn't alone.

In October 1960, I remember our patrol line, wending its way up the hill from school, alternating chants of "Pittsburgh!" and "Yankees!" And it was pretty much split half and half. I recall being a bit upset when the Pirates ended up winning the Series on Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in Game Seven.

Fast forward and the rivalry between us and them became more of a thing, and I'm highly unlikely to cheer on the Yankees, unless their winning is somehow critical to the success of the Red Sox. I did root for them in 2001, when, in the aftermath of 9/11, New York surely deserved to win it all. Unfortunately, they didn't.

And if the Yankees played the Dodgers in the World Series, I'd be hard put to pick a side and might even pull for a Yankees win.

But mostly, while I don't typically join in when the crowd starts up at Fenway, I'm pretty much solidly in the "Yankees suck!" camp.

One of my claims to fame as a Red Sox fan does involve the Yankees.

In 1961, as Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris battled for the American League home run championship, and the chance to pass Babe Ruth's 60 home run season record, I saw the M&M twins go back to back at Fenway Park. That was exciting!

I'm not sure if it was that year, or a year or so later, but my father, on business in Detroit, went to a Tigers-Yankees game with a local colleague. At the game, my father - a pretty fair athlete in his own right - caught a bat that flew out of Mantle's hands as he was taking a big-swing-and-a-miss.

Thinking it would be too awkward to bring the bat home from Detroit on the plane - this was before people immediately thought about FedExing something somewhere - he gave the bat to his companion.

He told me and my sister Kath the story, but we were sworn to secrecy not to tell my brothers, as they might have felt bad about not having that Mickey Mantle bat to show off. (Actually, I think it was my father who felt bad...)

So, Mickey Mantle home run. Mickey Mantle bat.

Seems I'm just a degree of separation from Joe Pepitone, a former Yankee who's suing the Baseball Hall of Fame, claiming that he is the true owner of the bat used by Mickey Mantle to hit his 500th home run - a bat that resides in the HoF.

Ah, Joe Pepitone, I remember him well.

A colorful, cocky New York Italian guy, colorful on the field and, if Wikipedia's got things right, off the field as well.

Among the tidbits:

• When he was in high school, he was shot by a classmate. He obviously survived, but it was quite a week: his father died that week of a stroke. Pepitone didn't press charges against the shooter.
• After a relatively successful major league career - he won several Gold Gloves for his play at first base, and was an All Star a few times - he played a year in Japan, where his name, pepitone - or so Wikipedia has it - is enshrined in the Japanese language as a synonym for goof off.
• He played professional softball. Who knew?
• In the late 1980's, he spent a few months in Rikers on a drug charge.
• A few years later, he mixed it up with a cop in the Catskills who called him a "has been." (Oh, Joe.)
• And then there was a DWI. 
• He's been an off-screen character in a few episodes of both Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

And now this. 

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York, Pepitone claims the bat that has been on display at the Hall of Fame for 54 years was only on loan under the condition that it be returned to him if he ever requested, according to a report in The Athletic. Pepitone reportedly asked for the bat on Sept. 1, 2020 and the Hall of Fame has resisted, countering that he has no rights to the artifact.

“The bat that Mickey Mantle used to hit his 500th home run was donated to the Hall of Fame by the New York Yankees in May 1967,” the museum said in a statement released Friday. “The Hall of Fame owns this historical bat and for more than fifty years, the Hall of Fame has preserved it and proudly put it on display for millions of fans to see as they tour the Museum.” (Source: NY Post)

The story is that Joe lent The Mick his bat, telling Mantle that the bat had a home run in it. 

Which it did. Fifty+ years ago, hitting the 500 mark in terms of homers was a big deal. Mantle was only the sixth big leaguer to do so. Since then, there've been another twenty-one sluggers to make that number. But when Mantle boomed his 500th, the only others to have done so were: Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Ted Williams, and Willie Mays. Pretty good company. And a big deal.

Anyway, Pepitone claims that both Yankees brass and the Hall of Fame PR director assured him that if Pepitone let them put the bat on display, he could call in the loan whenever he wanted it. All the other principals in these convos are dead. So, a he say. And that's it.

The bat Pepitone wants back is estimated to be worth $500,000 (the amount claimed in Pepitone's suit) or more (a memorabilia expert puts the number that the bat might fetch at a cool million). 

The Mantle bat my father left behind in Detroit would likely fetch multiple-thousands of dollars. Of course, in our house, it's not all that likely that it would have last. My brothers would have dragged it out to use in pickup games on the dirt road in front of our house. (The paved road on our street ended at our driveway.) It no one had a ball, they would have hit stones with it. Or one of the boys would have lost it somewhere. Or given it away. Or someone would have used it as a hammer and cracked it and "repaired" it with sticky black electrical tape. Or my mother would have found it years later - well after my father's death - and tossed it when she was cleaning out the basement.)

I'm guessing that someone with Joe Pepitone's checkered life could use the dough. 

But, with no written agreement in place, his claim is only as good as the paper it's written on. Which doesn't exist. So he's unlikely to get the bat, and the payday he's looking for. 

Where have you gone, Joe Pepitone? There's no nation turning its lonely eyes to you. Good thing. But it's kind of sad to see him, at age 80, suing the Hall of Fame. 

He was a decent player, that's for sure. Just not Hall of Fame worthy. Too bad he's not content with his bat making its way to Cooperstown.