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What do Babe Ruth and Charlie Sheen Have in Common? (other than smoking, partying, porn stars...)

I try to do blogs about current news related things involving autographs, as well as personal stories I have to share. This is one of those blogs where I talk about a current news story with some interesting items to be auctioned, and a bit of a rant by me.

Charlie Sheen, who at one time was a good actor and not just an insane partier, starred in two baseball movies in the ‘80s -- “Eight Men Out” and “Major League.” He’s also a hardcore baseball collector. I remember when that ground ball went through the legs of Bill Buckner in the 1986 World Series, he paid $100,000 for it. He ended up selling it years later for over $400,000.

And on the subject of World Series’ -- Sheen has the 1927 World Series ring of Babe Ruth, as well as the 1919 contract of Ruth’s sale from the Red Sox to the Yankees. You can currently bid at Lelands.com.

The bid for the ring started at $100,000 and is now over half a million. It was the first ring of four titles the Babe would get.

The contract is five pages and there were three of these that existed. The copy the Red Sox owned sold for almost a million bucks in 2005 at Sotheby’s. The copy that the American League had has never has surfaced. The one Sheen owns, Barry Harper purchased from former owner Jacob Ruppert’s estate. Many consider it the most important document in sports history. It’s what Sox fans claimed cursed their organization, because the Yankees ended up winning 27 World Series titles, and the “Curse of the Bambino” kept them winless (well, until 2004, the year Sheen bought the contract). Okay, I made the last part up. It was the following year that Sheen bought the contract, but it sounded more interesting the other way. Anyway...that also started with a $100,000 bid and is up to almost $400,000.

Now, here’s the part where I’m going to rant. In regards to selling this stuff, here’s what Sheen said: “While I have greatly enjoyed owning them, I thought now was the right time to sell the Holy Grail of Ruth memorabilia so others can enjoy them. It is my hope that whoever buys these will be able to put them on display for the public.”

Okay, two idiotic things about that statement. So often when people sell stuff, they say they “want others to enjoy it.” Uh, no you don’t. You want to make money. It’s that simple. If you wanted somebody to merely “enjoy” them, you could do some research, and find the biggest Ruth fan around, and surprise them with a nice gift.

The second part of the statement that was weird, was mentioning that he hoped they would be displayed for the public. Uh, Sheen...you made an insane amount of money on “Two and a Half Men.” He was making close to $2 million per episode. That means after filming one episode, he had enough money to purchase these cool items. If he wanted to let the public see them, he could donate them to the Hall of Fame museum, or some other place. Heck, he doesn’t even have to give them to the museums. He could tell them he’ll lend them for display for two years, and he could periodically take them to different museums so other people in different parts of the country can enjoy seeing them.

So please. For a guy that made millions and millions, and even got millions for being fired because of his drug use and craziness...he wants to make more millions selling them. Don’t act like you’re doing that for any other reason.

 

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Tags: Babe Ruth, Babe Ruth contract, Babe Ruth ring, Charlie Sheen, Eight Men Out, Josh Board, Major League, Two and a Half Men

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