At first sight, it just looked like an old, raggedy, run-of-the-mill wooden baseball bat. That was why its original owner was selling it for only $1.
But she would soon realize her error. It would take the intervention of one mysterious man to let her know how wrong she had been. And she would regret it instantly.
Sue McEntee from Des Moines, Iowa, was about to move house. She had already made most of the arrangements for the moving; she had packed her furniture and possessions, and she was almost ready to go.
But there was still one thing left. The garage was still full of old things that hadn’t been used in years. Old toys, magazines, tools… everything was piling up. So there was only one option left.
She decided to set up a little garage sale for all the neighbors and whoever might be interested. So she got all those old items together, put an estimated price on each of them, and organized them by categories.
The next day, the garage sale was ready. And it was pretty successful. Most of the neighbors came over to take a look, and a lot of them bought something. But there was also one mysterious man among the potential buyers.
Bruce Scapecchi was a bona fide treasure hunter. He used to roam around yard sales and garage sales, and he had a trained eye for valuable collector’s items.
To him, this was just another garage sale. Just another one from the hundreds and hundreds he had been to. So he didn’t expect to find anything special. But he was wrong.
Bruce thought he had a gift for recognizing hidden treasures or bargains that would otherwise have gone unnoticed by other buyers. He would usually leave every yard sale with something under his arm.
It could be an old piece of furniture that was more valuable than the original owners thought; it could be an old music record he had been looking for for years. But this time would be special.
Bruce was strolling around the exposed items, taking a look at everything. But there didn’t seem to be anything that caught his eye. After all, this was just a small, humble garage sale.
There was no reason to suppose that a hidden treasure could be found among those old objects. But he was in for a surprise.
He suddenly noticed an old wooden baseball bat tossed behind other more shiny, valuable items. Being a big baseball buff, Bruce decided to take a look at it from closer.
He took it in his hands. It was quite heavy, and the grip was smooth after years of use. He took a look at the price: it was just $1, which was fair enough. But then he noticed something.
There seemed to be some letters carved on the bat. Bruce stared at them for a while, trying to decipher what they said. And they couldn’t form any recognizable word.
But then, a sudden thought and realization struck Bruce’s mind. Could that be…? If his suspicion was right, that bat was worth a lot more than its owner thought. So he was faced with a moral dilemma.
Should he tell Sue that she was trying to sell a treasure for $1? Should he inform her of his suspicions about the old bat? Or should he just play dumb, take it home and maybe resell it for a fortune?
After reflecting on it for a bit, he decided to do the right thing. So he took the bat and walked towards Sue to talk to her about his discovery.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked her. Sue looked at him like he was speaking another language. “Well, looks like a bat to me,” she replied. Bruce asked her for a pencil so he could rub it on the carved letters to make the whole writing visible.
Sue brought it to him. Bruce started rubbing the pencil tip over the wood, and the original letters emerged. They said “Jackie Robinson”.
That bat turned out not to be just an old piece of wood: it was an incredibly valuable piece of American history! But for those who don’t know who Jackie Robinson was, some context might be of use.
Jack Roosevelt Robinson, better known as Jackie Robinson, was a player for the Brooklyn Dodgers during the ’40s and ’50s. But that wasn’t all.
He had been the first African American to ever play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. He symbolized the end of racial segregation in professional baseball.
Not only that: he had received the inaugural MLB Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949, and was the All-Star for six consecutive seasons. He was then inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
Sue was blown away by Bruce’s discovery. That bat was probably worth thousands of dollars! But how did she end up with that baseball treasure hidden in her garage in the first place?
Sue’s uncle was Joe Hatten, better known as “Lefty Joe”: he had been a pitcher for the Dodgers and used to play with Jackie Robinson. The two of them were friends and shared a very special bond.
But now, there was a question left. What would Sue do with the baseball relic? Would she sell it for thousands of dollars? Would she donate it to a public collection? Or would she just keep it home?
“We’re going to keep it. I mean, the stories with my uncle and Robinson. Yeah, it’s not going anywhere”, she told the press when asked about the story. But she also had in mind another use for it.
Jim Beatty, the chairman and president of the World College Series baseball tournament, heard about Sue’s bat and contacted her about it. And the two agreed to display it on an exhibition about the history of African-American players in baseball.
“Everyone coming in, especially the kids, the first thing they ask about is Jackie Robinson,” Beatty said. “So we point them to the display.”
