Baseball memorabilia caught up in Mickey Mantle's bankruptcy

NEW YORK (WABC) -- The closure of Mickey Mantle's, the sports bar and restaurant named after the famous Yankee slugger, was especially bad news for longtime Yankees fan and team historian, Marty Appel.

Just days before the court padlocked the troubled businesses' doors, Appel loaned the operators 22 framed pieces of memorabilia to help them out, believing he'd get it all back. However, that didn't happen.

"I don't see where the fairness is in all this, but it's certainly an example of no good deed goes unpunished," said Appel, "nobody does that - it's my stuff. It was marked, I had my name and address labels on it."

But the bankruptcy trustee has said Appell isn't the only one claiming to have personal property inside the restaurant. Attorney Alan Ripka says what is going on is the legal norm.

"For the most part, it's presumed that anything that's in that restaurant are in fact the assets of the restaurant or the corporation that is gone bankrupt and should be utilized to pay bank creditors," said Ripka.

The bankruptcy auction at Mickey Mantle's is set for 11 a.m. Tuesday morning, and Marty Appel's 22 pieces are among the items being auctioned off. He admits they're worth only maybe a couple of thousand dollars, so the value is mostly sentimental. He has now managed to focus on something he says is even more important.

"I started out feeling just awful for the situation, but then I reminded myself that a lot of good people, good friends, lost their jobs when the restaurant closed so you try and put things in perspective," said Appel.

Even losing a beloved baseball card or limited lithograph just somehow doesn't seem as significant.

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