Hunter Pence’s broken bat mistakenly sold for $400 in Giants team store

Don't feel bad if you don't know how much the shattered bat that Hunter Pence used for his famous "triple hit" in Monday night's NLCS Game 7 win over St. Louis is worth.

Neither do the San Francisco Giants.

Or at least they didn't. According to Andrew Baggarly of CSN Bay Area, the bat that Pence awkwardly used to hit a three-run double in the bottom of the third was collected by a team employee and immediately placed for sale in the team's game-used equipment store at AT&T Park.

[Related: Cardinals reach breaking point in NLCS with snap of Hunter Pence's bat]

A fan with a better eye for the value of history came along a little while later and paid a piddling $400 for what could end up being San Francisco's version of the bloody sock — a broken relic that perfectly represents the improbability of the Giants running a 6-0 record in elimination games this postseason.

From CSN Bay Area:

Baggarly reports that Pence named the bat "Fryer" and also used it to hit a home run in St. Louis. He'd like to regain possession of the bat and a Giants team official says the season ticket holder who bought the bat would like to return it. No plans to swap it out for some other swag from the National League pennant winners have been made, however.

[Y! Sports Fan Shop: Buy San Francisco Giants championship merchandise]

It's actually a little strange that a rep from Cooperstown did not make an immediate call to have the bat saved as one of the mementoes from the game. But the oversight does speak to the unique nature of the play. The fact that Pence's bat hit the ball on three different points wasn't apparent until we saw the super slow-motion replay from Fox and so maybe people at the park didn't yet know that it was a curiosity piece with a lot of value.

It's also worth noting that a similar situation happened back in the 2000 Subway World Series when dugout reporter Keith Olbermann saved part of the broken bat that Roger Clemens threw at Mike Piazza. One man's splinter is another man's souvenir.

Are you ready for the World Series?
Follow @bigleaguestew, @KevinKaduk and the BLS Facebook page!

Other popular content on the Yahoo! network:
• Melky Cabrera's exile from San Francisco reflects poorly on Giants
• Ten years later, Justin Verlander in Barry Zito's former role as best pitcher in baseball
• Giants announce World Series rotation and Tim Lincecum is not in it
• Y! News: How the empty, vacuous Obama-Romney faceoffs failed voters