New card collectors never cease to amaze me. Yesterday, this Upper Deck Babe Ruth signed ticket card sold for more than 40K on eBay. CLICK HERE

I just don’t get it. It’s not like this thing sold for 15K or even 20K. It sold for the same as a Mercedes for crumps sakes! Wow.

Ruth items like this sell all the time in major auctions. In fact, I bet you could find this exact same stub in a past auction (before UD performed its magic on it), and I would also be willing to bet that it sold for less than $10,000.

Maybe I am underestimating Upper Deck’s power in the hobby, but the fact that they slapped a border, Jimmy Spence authentication sticker and a “1/1” notation on it, to me, shouldn’t warrant another 30K onto the price.

Just got off the phone with former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis. Dock was very outspoken in his interview, which was exclusive to SCD, and we talked about the new ball that American Memorabilia is offering, which Ellis scripted the interesting inscription "I threw a no hitter on LSD."

Yep, you read it right. Only a few months after Pete Rose wrote the inscription where he admitted to betting on baseball, on a ball, this new inscription is being introduced to collectors.
When I first saw that this ball was being sold, I thought that Ellis and AMI may take a lot of heat for it, so I wanted to get Ellis' thoughts on this.

"It never crossed my mind that it's not the right thing to put on a ball," Ellis said. "That's what I did. It's already been publicized year, after year, after year. I put it on a ball because it's memorabilia."

Ellis also went into other topics, such as his daily ritual of taking bennies and greenies, while pitching.

He also was very opinionated on the steroid scandal and what has been going on in Major League baseball.

Ellis feels the steroid scandal "is a joke," and that steroids don't help players perform. He feels that a player has to have "skill," and that is far more important to their performances than steroids.

He also mentioned how many players were junkies during the days he played and MLB never said a word about it.
Eillis also went into the entire story of how he mistakenly LSD when he had to pitch against San Diego. We all know how that turned out. He threw the no-hitter and the Pirates won 2-0 (even thought he walked eight batters).
I asked him if he thought the drug had anything to do with his performance and if it helped him focused etc.

He told me that it did not and he gave credit to the "baseball gods," as it was just time in their eyes for a no-hitter.

I am still going through the interview tape, so hopefully I will have some more interesting tidbits to share.

As for the ball, you can get one from AMI at the price of $175. According to Dock, he will be signing a limited number of these, "between 50-100."

In one final personal note, I ended up getting my new TV. Samsung 42-inch plasma was the one I went with and I am very happy with it. Got a chance to watch Entourage's season premier last night on my new toy and it was awesome!

(Dallas, TX) - Concerns about the safety of fans in the stadium and potential legal liability have forced Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas, Texas to withdraw its previously announced offer of $1 million to purchase the baseball that Barry Bonds is expected to hit this season to establish a new career home run record of 756.

"There's a real concern that mania over the breaking of Hank Aaron's lifetime home run record coupled with a reward for the ball could lead to fans' injuries," said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auction Galleries (www.HA.com).

"After personally traveling to San Francisco and meeting with a senior Security Department official at AT&T Park about the potential for a melee in the stands, and discussing potential liability with our attorneys, we have reluctantly, but we feel prudently, withdrawn the $1 million bounty for the baseball.  We didn't hear of any way to prevent possible public safety problems, and we don't want a fan or a child injured or killed," Rohan explained. 

"We will be happy to speak with the eventual owner of that ball about consigning it to an auction, but we are no longer interested in buying the ball, and if there are indeed any injuries associated with any scuffle for the ball, we would decline to handle it at all."

Heritage is the world's largest collectibles auction house.  Last year Heritage sold at auction Babe Ruth's 1933 All-Star jersey for $657,250 and its auction of items from the archives of basketball originator, James Naismith, generated more than $700,000 in winning bids.

For additional information, contact Heritage Auction Galleries, 3500 Maple Ave., 17th Floor, Dallas, TX  75219.  Phone: (800) 872- 6467.  Online: www.HA.com.