Bat Flipped By Little League Player That Caused So Much Controversy Sells For Almost $10K

Last month in the midst of the Little League World Series qualifying, Haddonfield Little League player Marco Rocco was suspended for the New Jersey state championship over a bat flip. After much legal wrangling, the 12-year-old was reinstated and able to play in the game. Now the bat that caused all the controversy is back in the news. This time, however, it’s a much more positive story.

Thanks to a temporary restraining order issued by a judge, Rocco not only played in the game, he homered in his final at-bat. (He very calmly placed his bat near the batter’s box after that dinger.) Unfortunately for him, Haddonfield, the 2024 New Jersey State Champions, lost their final game 14-10 to Elmora and did not move on in the tournament.

On the plus side for Marco Rocco and the Haddonfield Little League, the bat that he flipped which caused so much controversy, a Rawlings Icon, sold for $9,882 at auction Friday morning. Not only that, one hundred percent of the proceeds from the auction will be donated to the league.

“I was watching it on my phone. I was shocked,” Marco’s father Joe Rocco told The Athletic. “I didn’t know what to expect, but as it got to the last hour or so, there were multiple people outbidding each other to the goal line.”

The description of the bat on Goldin Auctions’ website was overflowing with hype, calling it “the first and only time ever, [a judge] overturned an umpire’s call on the field.”

Marco Rocco of Haddonfield, New Jersey, whose majestic home run over the centerfield fence on July 16th was punctuated by an even more majestic bat flip halfway down the first base line. The home run, a two-run shot, clinched the NJ Little League Section 4 title for the Haddonfield 12U District Team so they could advance to the NJ State Championship. However, as soon as Rocco crossed home plate, the 12-year-old, brimming with excitement after the home run, was ejected by the umpiring crew due to “safety concerns.” Not safety concerns for the baseball he had just punished by launching it into the night, but safety concerns for the bat flip.

Presented is that very bat that propelled Haddonfield’s own Marco Rocco into the national conversation, a USA Baseball-certified Rawlings Icon baseball bat that measures 31 inches in length and weighs 23 ounces. Evidence of game use is excellent; the 2 5/8-inch diameter barrel exhibits numerous ball marks and impressions throughout, including blue and black ink transfers. The bat has been signed by Rocco, who has penned his flowing signature in black marker across the barrel along with the inscription “The Bat Flip HR 7/16/25” to commemorate the moment captured on video, which was then circulated throughout the internet to hundreds of thousands of viewers. Rocco’s first name has also been penned in black marker above the connector piece at the neck of the bat.

There were a lot of home runs hit in Little League competition in 2025, but none of them drew as much attention as Rocco’s. After being given a one-game suspension for being “unsportsmanlike” and participating in “horseplay,” not only did the media, both social and mainstream, have a lot to say about it, so did big names like the New York Yankees infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer.

“I thought that was ridiculous. You’re going suspend a kid for having fun? Crazy,” Chisholm said after the incident.

“If it’s a game-changing homer, it’s fine. Even when I’m on the mound, it doesn’t irk me. It’s a human reaction, and it’s good for the game, just like a pitcher doing a fist pump after a big strikeout,” said Scherzer.

“Who would have thought a jubilant moment for a 12-year-old would create such a controversy in the baseball world?” Goldin Auctions wrote about the bat. Who indeed?