What's It Worth To You?

Cause: ruptured water heater in my garage.

Effect: a bunch of long-forgotten sports memorabilia surfaces.

I dig into a box full of ticket stubs, scorecards, trading cards, media guides, press passes...what once seemed like important artifacts. They still trigger memories, but I'm feeling the urge to have less stuff in my life.

So I decide to see if some of this stuff might find a new home. Maybe somebody else wants it. And maybe they're willing to pay for it.

A couple of ticket stubs from the day Willie Mays got his 3,000th hit (I was there, age 14, Candlestick Park) attract immediate interest. One guy's willing to pay $500 for a stub, even though the back is marred with my teenaged notes about the details of Mays' feat (a groundball single off Montreal's Mike Wegener).

Who knew?
And then there's this item:That's right. 1962 World Series. Game 7. McCovey's liner to Richardson.

And no, I was not there. How I got this wrinkled, defaced ticket stub, I couldn't tell you. It doesn't bring back any memories because I have no memories of the '62 Series--I was 6 years old and I doubt even aware that such a thing as the World Series existed.

So is it easier to sell this one? Actually, no. I've listed it on eBay, too, but I'm ambivalent. See, it's one thing to sell a piece of paper that represents a memory (like those Mays 3,000 stubs). It's entirely something else to sell a piece of paper that represents a fantasy--a game I never saw, but which is a central piece of Bay Area sports history.