The little leaguer whose family went to court to get a bat-flip suspension lifted has turned the viral moment into a piece of baseball memorabilia.
Marco Rocco is now a pin.
The 12-year-old from Haddonfield, New Jersey, was embroiled in a legal fight last month after he was ejected for flipping his bat as he celebrated a home run in the final of a Little League sectional tournament. He faced a suspension from his first state tournament game for the ejection and the bat flip until his father took Little League to court and won an emergency temporary restraining order that allowed Rocco to play in the New Jersey State tournament.
Photo: AP
The flip is set to become part of the pin-trading culture that happens each year in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, during the Little League World Series. The pin depicts Rocco flipping the bat on his home-run trot to first base with “Batflip 2025” at the bottom and “Haddonfield” inscribed on the left side.
The pin is not for sale and is jointly released by the Rocco family and by family friends, and former major leaguers, Jeff and Todd Frazier. Only 75 pins were produced in honor of the 75th year of Haddonfield Little League and they will be traded only at the Little League World Series.
“They said it was a significant event in Little League this year,” said Joe Rocco, Marco’s father. “There was a lot of national attention on it and they thought making a pin and keeping a pin at a limited number would be an interesting item at the Little League World Series.”
Photo: AP
The Fraziers presented the pin idea to Joe Rocco to depict the biggest Little League story to burst on the scene since Mo’ne Davis — the first girl to earn a win and to throw a shutout in Little League World Series history — and he was instantly on board.
Joe Rocco said that he was unfamiliar with pin-trading culture — which Little League says is widely believed to have started in the mid-1970s by a team from Taiwan — and was simply excited to attend the US championship and Little League World Series final with his son.
Marco Rocco tossed his bat in the air on July 16 after his sixth-inning, two-run homer in the final of the sectional tournament. He was ejected and suspended for a game over what his family was told were actions deemed “unsportsmanlike” and “horseplay.”
Joe Rocco said that dozens of parents reached out to him to either offer support or ask for advice on how to handle similar disputes.
He said there was, of course, some blowback for his decision to take Little League to court over a disputed decision.
“It was chaotic, for a while, which is not what we wanted,” he said.
Their day in court ended with the judge allowing Marco Rocco to play and Little League did not appeal.
Joe Rocco said he was told that Little League would not appeal the decision, but would consider adding rules that would ban bat flipping.
“I think after this summer they absolutely need to put some sort of rule on it, whether it goes one way or the other so there’s clarity on it,” Joe Rocco said. “They need to be clear in the rules so this doesn’t happen again.”
Joe Rocco owns youth sports performance training facility Kresson Sports with Ken Goldin. Goldin is the owner of Goldin Auctions and star of the reality show King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch. He also had a son on the Haddonfield team.
Goldin already has the bat Marco Rocco flipped in his collection.
It is to be auctioned.
Taiwan is represented at the Williamsburg tournament again this year after Taipei-based Tung-Yuan won the Asia-Pacific Region qualifier at the Hwaseong Dream Park in South Korea from June 27 to July 3.
Tung-Yuan beat North Seoul B 2-0 in the final on July 3 to book their place in Pennsylvania, where they are to open against Mexico tomorrow.
Taiwan fell just short in the championship game of the Little League World Series last year, with Taoyuan-based Guishan losing 2-1 to Florida.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Wilyer Abreu watched the ball leave the park and tossed his bat high in the air. His Venezuela teammates streamed out of the dugout in celebration. The comeback was on and the win over the reigning World Baseball Classic (WBC) champion Japan was within reach. Japan, their 11-game WBC winning streak on the line, held a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning of Saturday’s thrilling quarter-final matchup when Abreu put his team ahead with the biggest swing of the game: a three-run shot off Hiromi Itoh that sent the loanDepot Park crowd into a passionate roar and helped seize Venezuela’s 8-5
A BREATHLESS BATTLE: France clinched the championship in a vicious back-and-forth match with England, denying Ireland the title by just a few points France won back-to-back Six Nations titles after beating England 48-46 on a last-second penalty-kick by Thomas Ramos in a thriller for the ages on Saturday. England scored their seventh try in the 77th minute and converted for 46-45. If the score held for a few more minutes, Ireland would have been crowned the champion. But France pressed yet again with 14 men, lost possession, regained it, and earned two simultaneous penalties after the fulltime siren. Captain Antoine Dupont debated with referee Nika Amashukeli where the penalty spots were. Ramos, who did not miss a goal-kick all night, finally lined up his seventh
Home runs are greeted with a celebratory shot of espresso and the donning of an Armani jacket. Victories are marked with bottles of red wine while the soaring voice of opera singer Andrea Bocelli echoes through the locker room. Welcome to baseball, Italian-style. Written off as 80-1 underdogs before the World Baseball Classic started, Italy’s fairytale tournament has carried them all the way to today’s (Taipei time) semi-finals in Miami against Venezuela. On Saturday, Italy — who scored a stunning upset of a star-studded US lineup during the pool phase — kept their unbeaten campaign alive with a nail-biting 8-6
Kimi Antonelli became Formula 1’s second-youngest race winner with a composed drive to victory for Mercedes in an eventful Chinese Grand Prix yesterday. The 19-year-old Italian was the youngest pole position starter and briefly lost the lead to Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari at the start, but retook it soon after and was in control after that. “We did it! We did it!” Antonelli shouted to his team on the radio amid laughs and whoops. It was another 1-2 finish for Mercedes to start the season as Antonelli’s teammate George Russell came through a battle with both Ferraris to finish second. Lewis Hamilton was
RSS