Crazy for memorabilia

When gum goes for three grand, something's amiss

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Phil's take, give us yours.

Although Luis Gonzalez is a terrific hitter and a gem of a human being, I would sooner play dodgeball against Randy Johnson than spend so much as a penny on a wad of Gonzo's chewed-up bubble gum. But hey, that's just me. Apparently, there are plenty of people out there who are willing to plunk down a healthy chunk of change for a ballplayer's used Bazooka.

A Minnesota-based sports collector named Jason Gabbert proved that recently when he got his hands on a piece of gum that Gonzalez had spit out and put it up for auction on his Web site. When last I checked, the bidding had reached $3,200, which is even more remarkable since Gonzalez, the Arizona Diamondbacks left fielder, chewed the gum in a spring training game. We can only imagine what something soaked in actual World Series-generated saliva would fetch.

I'm told that this is all amusing, in a pathetic, get-a-life sort of way, but I have to confess I don't see the humor. When it comes to memorabilia, even the non-chewed kind, I just don't get it. I fail to see why Nolan Ryan's rookie card is of any greater value today than the day it was issued. I don't understand why a basketball on which Michael Jordan illegibly scribbled his nameis worth more than one you can buy off the shelf at a sporting goods store.

If sports are trivial in the grand scheme of things, then sports memorabilia is trivia squared. The ridiculously lucrative market for what is mostly junk is a testament to the public's tendency to care about things that don't really matter. Maybe the interest in sports artifacts was once a harmless obsession, but no longer. Not when a pair of money-grubbers in the Bay Area are set to help clog up our courtrooms in a dispute over Barry Bonds' record-setting home run baseball. Not when fathers trying to make a buck are keeping their school-age kids up past midnight outside arenas and stadiums, using the little ones to beg for signatures that the dads can later sell. Not when former Yankees outfielder Ruben Rivera gets himself fired for swiping and selling then-teammate Derek Jeter's bat and glove.

Gabbert's gum grab may be on a slightly higher plane because he says the proceeds from the auction will be donated to a Minnesota high school, but every one of these instances involves people degrading themselves over memorabilia. It's getting to the point where the objects from an event are more valued than the event itself. Is it any wonder so many athletes have an inflated sense of their own importance when they toss a wristband or a sneaker into the crowd and see grown men and women scramble for it as if it was a winning lottery ticket? I've known players who threw items into the stands just for the pleasure of seeing fans humiliate themselves by waging war for them.

There's no telling what athletes will toss into the bleachers now that they know even their chewing gum is a hot commodity. Maybe instead of sweatbands, they'll just flick actual drops of sweat at the spectators. Years ago, Charles Barkley spit at a heckler and accidentally hit a little girl. Her parents were outraged then, but if it happened today, they'd probably carefully wipe the saliva into a little container and auction it off on eBay. There was a time when that would have been an absurd idea, but not anymore. That's not funny, it's sad.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

Related information
Stories
Phil Taylor's Insider archive
Multimedia
Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video
Search our site	Watch CNN/SI 24 hours a day
	Sports Illustrated and CNN have combined to form a 24 hour sports news and information channel. To receive CNN/SI at your home call your cable operator or DirecTV.