Bonus Story:
Swinging the deal for DiMaggio bats

Joe DiMaggio ended a self-imposed prohibition against signing bats this summer and, for a seven-figure fee, signed 1,941 bats at Hillerich-Bradsby near Louisville, Ky. 

In late September, tuxedo-clad Home Shopping Club hosts Alan Skantz and Brian Collard began their rap about exclusivity and investment. Yankee greats Whitey Ford and Tommy Henrich were on the set as guest celebrities. The bat was a Louisville Slugger replica of the bat DiMaggio used during the 56-game hitting streak of 1941. Item No. 394619 carried a price tag of
$3,995 per bat. Zow! HSC is believed to have had access to 700 bats. They sold a few hundred during those first couple of nights and boasted on subsequent shows that they'd sold out. What actually seems to have happened, one source close to HSC said, was that the television shopping network felt "it got stuck" with this pricey inventory and promptly sold many of the remaining bats to another source, maybe a casino. HSC isn't returning phone calls on the matter and others admittedly are withholding information.