... and I signed a confession. But I got a grand for it! Charlie Hustler
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5978398
Baseballs reportedly to be sold at $1K per ball
/ FOXSports.com
Posted: 54 minutes ago
Pete Rose might have hit an all-time low when he signed a bunch of baseballs with: "I'm sorry I bet on baseball," according to an exclusive report in the New York Daily News.
And Watchung, N.J.-based auction house Robert Edwards Auctions reportedly plans to sell 30 of the baseballs for a mere $1,000 a pop.
"This is where the baseball collectibles field has impact on the history of the game," said Rob Lifson, president of Robert Edward Auctions told the Daily News. "The collectibles field is not just shadowing the game — it's affecting its history."
It could also dash any hope for Rose, who received a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 for betting on the game, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Rose, as the Daily News points out, applied for reinstatement in 1997.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig met with Rose in 2002 to discuss a possible return to the game.
Career hits leader Pete Rose received a liftime ban in August 1989 from late commissioner Bart Giamatti for betting on baseball. (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP / Getty Images)
However, Rose became involved in a series of incidents in which he was seen gambling at casinos. He also was hit with lien from the IRS, which claimed he owed $1 million in back taxes.
Following roughly 15 years of denying he bet on baseball Rose in 2004 did an about-face, admitting in his autobiography My Prison Without Bars that he bet on the game as a player and manger for the Cincinnati Reds.
He repeated his admission in an interview with ABC's Primetime.
Rose's agent Warren Greene and attorney Robert Makley did not return phone calls from the Daily News seeking comment.
Greene, however, reportedly admitted to Sports Collectors Digest that Rose did sign the baseballs.
"Pete told me he signed a couple dozen as a favor to the guys in Cooperstown," Greene reportedly said in a story which the Daily News says will be published in Sports Collectors Digest this week.
Green, according to the Daily News, was referring to Tom Catal and Andrew Vilacky, two upstate memorabilia dealers who reportedly are friendly with Rose and are affiliated with Pete Rose Collectibles and the Pete Rose Museum, a shrine on the third floor of Catal's collectibles store in Cooperstown.
Robert Edward Auctions obtained 30 of the inscribed balls from the estate of Barry Halper, the New Jersey businessman and limited partner in the Yankees who died last year at 66.
Halper assembled the most extensive sports memorabilia collection in history. Most of his collection was sold in 1999 for $25 million at Sotheby's.
But the Daily News says the Halper family contacted Lifson, who supervised the 1999 sale, about cosigning pieces the legendary collector picked up after the big-bucks auction. "I went out to do an inventory," Lifson said, "and there they (the Pete Rose balls) were in a box."
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/5978398
Baseballs reportedly to be sold at $1K per ball
/ FOXSports.com
Posted: 54 minutes ago
Pete Rose might have hit an all-time low when he signed a bunch of baseballs with: "I'm sorry I bet on baseball," according to an exclusive report in the New York Daily News.
And Watchung, N.J.-based auction house Robert Edwards Auctions reportedly plans to sell 30 of the baseballs for a mere $1,000 a pop.
"This is where the baseball collectibles field has impact on the history of the game," said Rob Lifson, president of Robert Edward Auctions told the Daily News. "The collectibles field is not just shadowing the game — it's affecting its history."
It could also dash any hope for Rose, who received a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 for betting on the game, to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Rose, as the Daily News points out, applied for reinstatement in 1997.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig met with Rose in 2002 to discuss a possible return to the game.
However, Rose became involved in a series of incidents in which he was seen gambling at casinos. He also was hit with lien from the IRS, which claimed he owed $1 million in back taxes.
Following roughly 15 years of denying he bet on baseball Rose in 2004 did an about-face, admitting in his autobiography My Prison Without Bars that he bet on the game as a player and manger for the Cincinnati Reds.
He repeated his admission in an interview with ABC's Primetime.
Rose's agent Warren Greene and attorney Robert Makley did not return phone calls from the Daily News seeking comment.
Greene, however, reportedly admitted to Sports Collectors Digest that Rose did sign the baseballs.
"Pete told me he signed a couple dozen as a favor to the guys in Cooperstown," Greene reportedly said in a story which the Daily News says will be published in Sports Collectors Digest this week.
Green, according to the Daily News, was referring to Tom Catal and Andrew Vilacky, two upstate memorabilia dealers who reportedly are friendly with Rose and are affiliated with Pete Rose Collectibles and the Pete Rose Museum, a shrine on the third floor of Catal's collectibles store in Cooperstown.
Robert Edward Auctions obtained 30 of the inscribed balls from the estate of Barry Halper, the New Jersey businessman and limited partner in the Yankees who died last year at 66.
Halper assembled the most extensive sports memorabilia collection in history. Most of his collection was sold in 1999 for $25 million at Sotheby's.
But the Daily News says the Halper family contacted Lifson, who supervised the 1999 sale, about cosigning pieces the legendary collector picked up after the big-bucks auction. "I went out to do an inventory," Lifson said, "and there they (the Pete Rose balls) were in a box."
