Home Run Derby

Personally, I consider a signed baseball to be one of the coolest souvenirs you can get from a baseball game.   I have only one autographed  baseball, signed by Jim Thome.  It’s not certified or anything, but I’m not going to sell it.  It’s a lasting memory.

But mind you, some signed baseballs are better than others.  Ones that have a real personal touch.  Ones that connect a player to a fan, a moment, or even … history.

Let’s take a look at some of the best instances of ink on rawhide leather.

Pete Rose
Cincinnati Reds

I like it when people confront an issue head on … but this one stings a little bit. 

Because after years of denying that he ever bet on baseball, now Pete Rose is selling baseballs at PeteRose.com that undeniably say that he bet on baseball.

For $250.20.

What the heck is with the 20 cents? 
Is that the value of Rose’s fake apology?

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Baseball has a long history of its players cheating.

Spitballs, corked bats, interference, sharpened spikes, stealing signs, and performance enhancing drugs among those transgressions. 

And sometimes, there’s cheating that happens off the field.  And not just marital infidelity.  There’s also the guys who try to cheat Uncle Sam out of his take.

So in honor of this April 15th – TAX DAY – here’s a look at Baseball’s biggest tax cheats.  Well, the ones who got caught anyway.

Derek Jeter

In 2001, Jeter purchased a $13 Million Apartment in Trump Towers near the World Trade Center.   Which would make you think he’s a resident of New York.  But Jeter has claimed to be a resident of Florida since 1994 … I wonder if it’s merely a coincidence that Florida has no state income tax. 

Well, the New York Department of Taxation and Finance didn’t think it was a coincidence, and in 2007 charged Jeter with evading three years worth of  Taxes from 2001-2004.   New york said that Jeter was indeed a resident of the Empire State and not the Sunshine State.

Jeter reportedly settled the case with New York in 2008.  The terms and value of the settlement are unknown.

Barry Bonds

Okay this one is totally speculative and unofficial since the Feds didn’t include any Tax Evasion charges in their indictment of Bonds back in 2007. 

But it was widely reported in 2006 that Bonds handed over at least $80,000 in ”possibly undeclared $80,000 in cash from memorabilia sales” to his mistress, Kimberly Bell.  Bell said that Bonds “instructed her to deposit the money in amounts less than $10,000.”

My guess is that the Feds dropped the Tax Evasion charges because Bell was an unreliable witness – she’s got man-hands, after all.

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I have always been a firm believer in the power of baseball.  I still well up when Terrence Mann, aka James Earl Jones, gives his “People will come” speech to Ray Kinsella, aka Kevin Costner, in Field of Dreams.

And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon.  They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes.  And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters.  The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.  People will come Ray. 

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.  America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers.  It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again.  But baseball has marked the time.  This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray.  It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.  Oh… people will come Ray.  People will most definitely come.

I found myself thinking of that movie moment driving up the Edens Expressway Friday Night as I made my way home from the White Sox-Red Sox game at the Cell.  You see, the night before, my buddy, Brian, who works for ESPNZone, called me up to offer an extra ticket to the game. 

It was so much more.

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Home Run Derby’s a sucker for a great “baseball player signing a ball” for a fan story. 

Especially when there’s something really witty written on the ball. 

Whatever happened to Vernon Wells, anyway?

The fabulous Deadspin had this fabulous story (and a fabulous pic) sent to them about a ball signed by Cubs closer Ryan Dempster …

After Christine pleaded for the ball again (in that semi-annoying way only girls can pull off), Dempster responded back “I’ll give you the ball if you take your top off.” By now the entire bleacher section was rolling over itself, a few beers deep and chanting “Take it off” in support of Dempster’s response.

Dempster, in an act of kindness and to stop the crowd from chanting at this poor girl to take off her clothes, then gave Christine the ball and went about his warming up business.

A bit later on … Christine, now relishing her role as “that girl” in the stands, goes and gets Dempster to sign the ball he gave her.

Let’s see what the always clever Ryan Dempster wrote on that ball, shall we?

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