Media Savvy
Buried Treasure
By Alby Oxenreiter

This is a story about a baseball bat, and characters named Briercheck, Bartirome, Hallahan, Hebner, and most notably, Honus. It's a tale that started in the late 19th century, only to be wrestled back to life in the early part of the 21st.

For almost 30 years, a bat collected dust beneath a basement stairwell, under a pile of junk. There it was - covered up like a buried treasure, waiting to be rediscovered. It could very well be one of baseball's earliest artifacts; it is at the very least one of its rarest. It's made of wood that's been darkened by time. It's just over 36 inches long and weighs just under 41 ounces.

It's a bat. But not any bat. It appears to have belonged to an American icon known as "The Flying Dutchman," and it's a find that could send collectors, curators and curious bystanders into a tailspin. The bat is the story, but the way it found its way to a house just outside of Pittsburgh is just as interesting.

Honus Wagner is baseball royalty. It's been 88 years since he last played and 50 years since he died, but Wagner remains one of baseball's immortals. He played 18 seasons in Pittsburgh, 21 overall, and retired with more hits, runs, RBI, doubles, triples, steals and games played than any other National League player. Wagner was a seven-time batting champ and the second member of baseball's 3000-hit club. He was baseball's first superstar and one of the five original members of the Hall of Fame.

After his retirement in 1917, Wagner worked off and on as a Pirates' coach for the better part of 40 years, finally ending his run in the early 1950's. As the story is told, he often used one of his old bats to hit infield practice. After his death in 1955, his prized bat - maybe his only remaining bat, fell into the hands of John Hallahan, the Pirates' longtime equipment manager.

When the team moved from Forbes Field to Three Rivers Stadium in 1970, the bat found a new home in the new stadium's equipment room. Former Pirates' infielder Richie Hebner used to admire Wagner's bat. Before a game in 1973, Hebner used the bat to take some cuts at batting practice. On the third swing, he cracked the bat in the handle. Hallahan was furious and beside himself with disgust. Thinking the bat was now useless, he angrily threw it into a pile.

The incident was witnessed by several other people, including trainer Tony Bartirome. The batboy that day, Tom Briercheck, didn't yet understand the significance of the bat he was told to throw in the garbage. Fortunately, for him and for fans of baseball history, he didn't follow Hallahan's orders.

Briercheck took the bat home with approximately 50 other cracked bats and placed them under a basement stairwell at his parent's house.

Hallahan died over a decade ago. Hebner is now a coach for the Triple-A Durham Bulls. Bartirome is retired and living in Florida. Briercheck, 47, is raising five children and working as a local high school umpire.

Last month, while cleaning out his parents' house, Briercheck rediscovered his old cracked-bat collection. Among bats belonging to Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Bill Mazeroski was an ancient-looking dark brown bat with a strong and defined wood grain, and what he thought were the initials of Pirates' Hall of Famer Paul Waner. Briercheck thought he was looking at a "PW" carved inside an oval where the bat brand would normally be burned. He needed more information, so he called Bartirome.

The two men hadn't talked in 25 years, but Bartirome remembered the batboy and returned his call. Briercheck asked if the initials "PW" were for Paul Waner.

At that moment, he could feel Bartirome's excitement. He could hear it in his voice. Bartirome knew what the teenage batboy didn't, and he understood what a 15-year-old couldn't. Bartirome told Briercheck he was about to become a rich man.

Bartirome explained that "PW" was actually a blended carving of "JPW" - for Johannes Peter Wagner. 110 years couldn't erase the carving and 32 years didn't erase Bartirome's memory. He had held and swung that bat many times, and he vividly recalled the bat in detail. Bartirome is absolutely positive that the bat belonged to and was used by the great Honus Wagner.

Whether or not the bat was actually used by Wagner seems only relevant to the price tag at auction. At the very least, Briercheck seems to have a bat that belonged to Wagner, and the carving of the initials indicates that maybe it was indeed used by him.

There will be skeptics, but Briercheck isn't fazed. He's convinced he has something special and he wants to sell the bat at auction. It's hard to blame him. After all, he'll have five kids starting college in the next eight years. If a bat belonging to Babe Ruth sold for more than one million dollars, what would be the price tag of a bat belonging to Honus Wagner? The batboy is anxious to find out.

Alby Oxenreiter is the sports director at WPGH-TV 53.