[BrandonG]

First off, to those of you I met while at the National: I had a great time meeting you, our conversations were sincere, and I was not lying about any of the current circumstances. I hope you now understand why I had to keep things more private, and why this whole situation was so difficult and frustrating for me, because it was extremely personal as I was very concerned about my fiancé and her name being brought up to a public forum of strangers. I hope that you guys whom I now consider friends, understand that would do anything to protect her, including having to leave some details out. In this situation, a figured it would be better for me to take the heat, as in the long run, it’s my involvement in the hobby that brought her in to the whole situation.

I fought really adamantly on here to not reveal every single circumstance or detail because I wanted to protect my fiancé’s name and was worried about this very moment, when her name might be brought up. I was also painfully aware at how certain people on this forum are more concerned with tearing others down, and when the first thread popped up, I was concerned that any connection of me to reproductions could affect how my genuine research was received. And after pouring myself into this research and work, I was fearful. But now that we are at this point, it’s time to explain a few things and move on.

First off, I am 30 years old, I’ve got $700.00 in my account, and this hobby is not my life. I’m a recently laid off pilot due to the economy, just trying to get by. 4-5 years ago when I was a broke 25 year old, I was a small time baseball collector, the guy everyone on here laughs at when we over pay for generic crap. I collected Angels stuff, and had no idea who PSA, JSA, or Net54 was, and didn’t really care. I always wanted a Babe Ruth signed baseball, but couldn’t afford even the lowest grade of ball. So like a typical dumb newbie collector, I purchased a replica on eBay and put it on my shelf. A good friend of mine saw it and had some ideas of how we could make a better one and I thought why not, it will just be on my shelf anyway. The ball we made came out very nice (we thought at the time, but knowing what I know today, it was obviously junk) so we decided to put a couple up on eBay. Some of you remember they sold very well. To me, they were like art, a neat fantasy piece. After selling maybe 5-10 over 2 months or so someone contacted us with a very negative attitude towards these replicas, and how they could potentially affect the hobby. I understood where this person was coming from, but respectfully disagreed that these could ever be passed as genuine. To this day, I have never seen one of the replicas I was connected with sold as genuine, and that includes never seeing one sold on Coaches Corner. The balls were always made on brand new Rawlings baseballs, the stamping was always slightly altered, the size was much smaller, and it wasn’t a pen signature, it was ink jet printing, one look with a close eye and you can see they were a spray pattern of 4 color ink. These baseballs would never pass any type of TPA. For all of those reasons I was never concerned with the sales. However, the listings always disclosed that they were replicas, and in most of the sales we even included a disclaimer saying if I ever saw one of ours up sold as genuine, I would take proper action against them. Over time other sellers began creating their own replicas, and if I ever saw wrong doing with those, I would report them directly to eBay as well.

When I became a member of the forum, I then began my research into vintage baseballs to create my own chronological collection. The info wasn’t available, so through my desire to learn, I began my History of the Baseball project. I never intended to publish any work, I never wanted to be the guy to go to for the info, but it just fell into my lap because I apparently was the only one willing to piece all this info together in a complete way. I began to distance myself from the reproductions, and simply sold a few here and there to pay my phone bill, and put gas in the car. My girlfriend at the time, who is now my fiancé, listed the majority on her account for me and my friend. I honestly never thought that replicas were a bad thing. These weren’t forgeries, they weren’t on vintage baseballs, and they didn’t sell for thousands in auction houses. To me, it was the same thing as a reprint T3, or simply an artistic fantasy piece for the regular guy. I even had older gentlemen from Australia email me thanking me as if I’d just saved his life. All he ever wanted was a Ruth ball on his shelf next to some other Ruth photos and memorabilia, he even sent me a photo. After seeing the hundreds of other replicas go up on eBay, still to this day (and in fact, our sales are dwarfed in comparison to other eBay sellers who are still listing replicas), and forum members not seeming to care anymore, the one or two that got listed from us didn’t seem like that big of a deal. In actuality, I stopped helping produce them, and my fiancé would just list the few our friend made to get rid of the ones we had left. In the last year, I even told our ex partner that we were done with them, and it was time for us to start a new chapter trying to write the book. Myself and our ex partner shared the original eBay account, everything I said about that was true, I screwed my credit with PayPal, and sharing didn’t seem like a big deal. Perhaps some of this sharing eBay and PayPal accounts seems strange, but it was simply out of convienence at the time. There was no way I could know at the time that in a couple years I would be in a place to put out a guide. As stated in the original thread, this was perhaps a mistake, a lapse in judgment on my part, and here I am paying for it 100 times more than I feel I deserve.

The ball that started the original thread was meant to match a Harridge all-star ball that I photographed at the HOF. It was a fill in for a ball I had never seen, and couldn’t obtain images of, for a game used section of the book that was more story-telling than identifying a ball. The pictures were never used in the end, and the ball isn’t in the guides. We have gone over that, and everything I said was true. I didn’t want to reveal any names because of personal reasons with my fiancé, and undeserved harassment on her end, and I didn’t want to give his name because of business reasons. I don’t need to be sued or threatened, or lose money over something like this. When all is said and done, that ball never sold; I made sure of that, as explained. I got it back and was waiting to destroy it because I knew forum members would want some video evidence or some crap like that.

So there’s my life story in the memorabilia world, it spans about 5 years, and yeah, maybe some decisions were poor, but I never broke the law, and I made damn sure others didn’t either. And whether you like replicas or not, without my participation with them, I would never have the knowledge I have now. There are so many asshole criminals in this industry, ripping people off for millions of dollars, and I will NOT be associated with them. And it’s asinine that some of you are trying to do this. You may like me, you may not, but I won’t let libel and slanderous accusations continue against me, nor my fiancé. I was at the National and met some extremely genuine, polite, and great guys, who had the balls to speak with me, even if they didn’t agree with everything. The few of you that hide behind the keyboard are not men, are not tough, and take pleasure in playing games with other people’s feelings and emotions. I’m tired of this forum, I’m genuinely tired of having to worry about what nonsense people say about me and the people who defend me on this forum. When it comes down to it, this is not my life, I haven’t made a profit selling baseballs, vintage or reproduction. I did all this research and put these guides out because I love baseball, I love history, and I wanted to help people with the knowledge I’ve obtained. In releasing these guides, I just gave every person the ability to gain my knowledge, everything that made me unique. I don’t have to date stuff anymore, everyone can be the expert now. These guides cost thousands to print, and it will take me years to get back the money I just dropped on them.

My friends on here: don’t waste your time and emotion replying to the nonsense. Let’s be bigger men. I’m done here, and I’d rather people who visit this forum read threads that actual mean things and help the hobby. Email me, call me, I will talk for hours with you about baseball, as you probably noticed at the National. But not here, not any longer. And for those of you who I know will respond with petty, sarcastic, snide, and unfounded remarks to further hurt my feelings and reputation (as I can only assume that is your goal), you can’t imaging how hard it was for me to hold my tongue against you, but out of my respect for Leon after meeting him in Chicago, and my sincere respect for the guys I hung out with who come one here for civil discourse and information (you know who you are) I have written this as politely as I could handle. If you have something to say, say it to me directly, not these other guys. My email and phone number are publicly available. There’s no conspiracy here to uncover: just a 20-something year old interested in baseballs, who tried to make a few bucks on the side (legally, mind you), and became an expert on vintage baseballs almost on accident.