As someone who has collected baseball cards and some sports memorabilia all his life, stories like this always leave me scratching my head a bit. A family in Connecticut is about to auction of a home run ball they claim was hit by Lou Gehrig in the 1928 World Series. Gehrig's home run was hit off another all time great, Grover Cleveland Alexander. And, if that isn't cool enough, Babe Ruth was on base. The mother of the family says they are selling the ball on behalf of her 30-year-old son to pay off his medical school debt. You can read the full story HERE.
(pictured: Lou Gehrig)
I have no problem with this family selling a ball hit by Lou Gehrig. My problem is, how do we know it was hit by Lou Gehrig? It seems almost every time I read one of these stories about a "glove used by Babe Ruth", or a "home run hit by Babe Ruth" they turn out to be frauds. In fact, just about a year ago the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum had to pull a bunch of its memorabilia because the collector who gave the items to the HOF was busted for fraud. So even the HOF cannot guanrantee all there itmes are 100% authentic. Look, I am NOT claiming this family is purposely selling a fraudulent ball. They may honestly believe the ball was it by Lou Gehrig. They may even have the proof. In fact, based on the story it sounds like the ball was handed down within the family. And I know nowadays they have DNA testing all all sorts of tests that can authenticate these things. But, really, how can you know?
I have some cool old baseball cards in my collection. Some of which are worth a pretty penny. And I have even teamed up with Casey in the past at card shows to sell some of these cards. But to tell you the truth, I could not guarantee you 100% that what I am selling to use is the real deal. I mean, I guess some of it has to do with trusting someone. And I would like to believe I am someone who you can definitely trust. But even if I owned this Lou Gehrig ball and had all the testing in the world done on it, I would be reluctant to sell it, even for $100,000 simply for the fact that I couldn't be100% sure it is authentic. I know, I'm a little crazy and I am not trying to climb up on my moral high horse. Listen, God bless the family if they get that much money. Nothing wrong with selling it if some chump wants to spend that much. Okay, climbing off my moral high horse! Go Yankees!
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