Barry's balls, OJ's suit & John's rocker

Recently, I wrote a post about some super clown spending over three-quarters of a million dollars to buy a baseball which baseball super star, Barry Bonds, had once struck with a baseball bat. The fact that this particular ball was the one Bonds sent sailing into the stands for his 756th career home run does not justify the $750,000.00 price tag. Nor should it keep super clown, Mark Ecko, out of the looney bin.

Nobody in their right mind pays that kind of money for something you can pick up at the local Wal-Mart for under ten dollars. But, it got me to wondering just how many other nut bars, masquerading as “collectors of memorabilia”, might actually be out there running around without supervision.

I’m not talking about fans who spend 50 or 100 dollars on a football jersey, or 20 bucks or so on an autographed baseball. Fan is, after all, short for fanatic.

No, I’m talking about those collectors who spend thousands, tens of thousands and much more on items of questionable value, simply because some player has soiled it with his sweat, or drooled on it, or some such. To me, those individuals are a few bricks short of a load.

Think about it people. If I were to substitute the ball that bounced off little Buddy’s bean at the local high school game for the baseball Barry Bonds sent over the wall, how in the hell would you be able to tell the difference?

In the news recently, it was reported that OJ Simpson had been arrested in conjunction with the robbery of two memorabilia collectors. OJ claims he was trying to recover signed collectibles: books, photographs, his wedding video and the suit he wore when he was acquitted of the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend.

Memorabilia “experts” suggest the suit could fetch between $5,000.00 to $25,000.00 at auction. I can buy the same suit, probably better, at Moore’s Men Shop for under 200 bucks. And, it will fit. Who the hell pays that much for a suit they’ll never wear? Unless, of course, they’re a little kinky and inclined to do strange things in the privacy of their bedroom.

But sports enthusiasts aren’t the only ones paying big bucks for second hand stuff. At a 1996 New York auction of the belongings of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, two rocking chairs were sold; one for $442,000.00 and the other for $453,000.00, for no other reason than that it was one of roughly a dozen similar rocking chairs in which John Kennedy had parked his posterior prior to his assassination.

Similar rocking chairs go for around $169.00 at Wal-Mart. Although I can’t swear to it, I suspect the Wal-Mart specials are every bit as comfortable as the four hundred thousand dollar Kennedy model. And, would you really want to rock your grand kids on that kind of investment? What if little Percy piddles on the padded upholstery? Wouldn't steam cleaning be likely to cause undue depreciation?

For the record, sitting in John Kennedy’s rocker will not make you a great polititian, wearing OJ’s suit will not make you rich and famous, or famous and poor, whichever is the reality, and branding Barry’s balls will not make you a baseball super star.

What spending that kind of money on second hand junk should get you is an insanity hearing.