[drc]

If it was a purple heart of love letters to his wife, I would say the family might have special rights. But, in the scheme of things, it's just a baseball bat.

Realize, fathers will their stamp or or rare book collection to a neighbor's son because he knows the kid appreciated and would enjoy the collection more than his kids would. Upon retirement, a man may give his high end brief case to a co worker. So there's no automatic familial moral right to everything someone had. The player may have never owned the bat, or gave it to his teammate or even a fan-- it was never intended for family. If he gave it to the family and the family wanted it, then why don't they still have it?

If I met a old co-worker of my dad, and he showed me a fancy paperweight of my dad's and that my dad gave to him, I would be beyond rude to say "He was my dad. Give it to me." In reality, I would be impressed this guy still had and and used the paperweight and would count him as the rightful owner. I may be my dad's only son, but that doesn't mean I have moral rights to everything that was ever in his office. In fact, the stuff he gave to co-workers I clearly would not have claims to.

In short, I wouldn't buy an argument that anything and everything that ever belonged to a ball player belongs to the family, legally or morally. If you want me to pick the moral owner of that paper weight, I would pick the co-worker.

In fact, if the player knew what an avid collector and historian of Nebraska baseball you are, there would be very good chance that he would give the bat to you. Would he be glad to learn that a Nebraska superfan owns his bat in the 21st century? I would assume so.