Teams negotiate to get back homerun balls

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Gary Dunaier

This may be a dead issue as far as Net 54 is concerned, so more for the historical record than anything else, I came across a video of the Mets celebrating Santana's no-hitter (link here, then click on "Must C Classic: Santana finishes off Mets first no-no"), and at 1:03 we see Mets catcher Josh Thole handing Santana a baseball, which I presume is the one that was used to make the final out. Whether or not he still has it is unknown (it could be in his posession, the Mets might have asked for it for the Mets Museum, maybe even Cooperstown wants it, who knows?), but it was given to him.

Gary,
FWIW, this is not a huge surprise. No-hit pitchers are usually always given the last ball used in the game as their own personal trophy of sorts. What they do with it after would depend on the player...

BTW, when the BB HOF in Cooperstown calls after a no-hit game like this they typically ask for the uniform, hat and sometimes the cleats of the pitcher.

[mcgwirecom]

Was watching Matt Cains Perfect Game Wednesday night. The first thing I noticed after the last out was Brandon Belt sticking the ball in his back pocket...LOL. I hope he gave it back later.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

That's so funny about you mentioning In-n-Out! I was in Los Angeles briefly on Thursday. I had lunch at an In-n-Out!! Just for the record, I had a Double-Double with grilled onions, fries and a chocolate shake. As usual, it was all good. You are correct. No In-n-Out's or good authentic mexican food in the Midwest. These are the things I miss the most.

The next time I'm in LA, I promise to take you up on that Jimmy!

Next time order your burger "animal style"; it is off-menu and totally worth it. And the animal style fries are so addictive that they should be illegal...

[MacDice]

Originally Posted by drc

Never been to an in and out. The big deal out here (Seattle) is Jack in the Box, but I've never been their either.

When I lived in Australia it was Hungry' Jacks, which was the Aussie equivalent of Burger King.

From one Seattle person to another....Jack In The Box really? In Seattle it is without question it's Dicks.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Next time order your burger "animal style"; it is off-menu and totally worth it. And the animal style fries are so addictive that they should be illegal...

Will do!

[Gary Dunaier]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

No-hit pitchers are usually always given the last ball used in the game as their own personal trophy of sorts. What they do with it after would depend on the player...

I never thought of the "trophy" aspect of it. I know they put aside a player's first hit to give to him, but in this case I guess my collector's mentality was working overtime...

[RichardSimon]

btw - the Mets REPRINTED all the tickets to that Santana no hit game and are selling them for $50 apiece. Yeah, fifty bucks for a repro.
Pretty cheezy in my mind and I am a Mets fan.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-bi...9106--mlb.html

[mcgwirecom]

I heard about that. I'd like to see one of the reprints. In the past when a team reprinted a significant ticket they would often use the box office variety. And the would also leave on the code that tells when it was purchased so you could tell it was an "after the fact" type reprint. My favorite was Gaylord Perry's 300th win ticket. The Mariners actually printed "Gaylord Perry's 300th Win" right on the ticket! And some people think it's legit! But other teams like the Cardinals printed exact copies of the season holders tickets for McGwire's 62nd, 70th and 500th HRs. There is no way to tell the difference, so technically you would think a full box office ticket should be worth more. But they aren't, people still like the season style best.

[Brendan]

I've been to both Five Guys and In-N-Out. I have to say to I feel pretty "meh" on both of them. A local burger joint absolutely trumps Five Guys and In-N-Out in my opinion.

I've always wondered if anything more would come out of it for the guy who gave back the Jeter ball. Would some rich New York City company give him a high-paying job? It is certainly a possibility, but I know I wouldn't give the guy a job. Why would you want to hire someone stupid enough to give back a six figure ball for a couple of tickets?

[Gary Dunaier]

Unfortunately, it seems the reprints of the Santana tickets will not be identified as such. I'm a Mets season ticket holder (which means I'll be getting the reprints of the tickets for my seats free) and I asked my representative about this, and she e-mailed back "To my knowledge I do not believe there is any indication that they were reprinted and there is no difference from the originals."

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Gary Dunaier

Unfortunately, it seems the reprints of the Santana tickets will not be identified as such. I'm a Mets season ticket holder (which means I'll be getting the reprints of the tickets for my seats free) and I asked my representative about this, and she e-mailed back "To my knowledge I do not believe there is any indication that they were reprinted and there is no difference from the originals."

Nice! Expect that the value of these tickets will get much lower as soon as the ticket collector crowd figures this out.

[murphusa]

Originally Posted by Scott Garner

Nice! Expect that the value of these tickets will get much lower as soon as the ticket collector crowd figures this out.

most of the tickets sold after the fact on games like Hallidays perfect game etc had the print date on them. So for Hallidays Perfect game the print date was 2 days after the game date.

Guessing the same will be true on the Mets ticket

[Gary Dunaier]

Here's a "souvenir" Halladay ticket I bought after the fact...


(Barcode digitally removed from image.)

This is a "Ticketmaster" style ticket. "Ticketmaster" and "box office" tickets have the date of printing in the lower left corner, and as murphusa correctly points out in this case "A10JUN0," shows that this ticket was printed after the date of the event.

The Mets will reprint the Santana no-hitter tickets on "season ticket" stock. This is the season ticket for that game...


(Seat number, account number and barcode digitally removed from image.)

As you can see, there's no place where the date of printing is indicated. So, barring some deliberate subtle printing variation, those of us who have the season tickets - and especially those who got caught up in the heat of the moment and paid as much as $500 for one - are, at least from a collecting standpoint, screwed.

[drc]

If you have a real ticket, get proof that you had it before the reprints were made. This can be done by taking a dated photo, putting a picture of it in a letter that is notarized, posting a picture of it on some photo site or this board, etc. If you won it in an auction, print out the auction listing that shows the date of the auction and pictures the ticket. If properly documented/dated in one of these or other ways before the reprints are offered, reprints shouldn't be a concern.

An auction listing picturing the ticket or notarized letter picturing the ticket would be solid proof. The notarization will include the date.

[Gary Dunaier]

Getting back to the original subject of this thread, you might like to know that Steiner is offering, on their website, a ball signed by Jeter and Christian Lopez, the fan who caught it...



Price $774.99. (link)

The same ball, with only Jeter's signature, is $699.99. That means Steiner feels Lopez' autograph is worth $75.00. (On the other hand, let's be fair to Steiner - Lopez' signature does include an inscription).

Comment as you see fit - but please do so in the "What would you have done if you caught Jeter's 3000th hit?" thread. (I posted this item there as well, but I wanted to make sure people knew this item existed, hence the cross-post.)

[Gary Dunaier]

My reprints of the tickets from Johan Santana's no-hitter arrived today.

The reprints are the season ticket style with the Bobby Ojeda image posted earlier in this thread.

The tickets appear to be exactly the same - the account number is printed on the tickets, and there is a barcode. The barcode on the reprints differs from that on the original, but since each barcode is unique, that's not a way to tell the difference.

However, there is one significant difference. The words "SEASON TICKET" do not appear on the reprint. So, thankfully, there is a way to tell the originals apart from the reprints.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by Gary Dunaier

My reprints of the tickets from Johan Santana's no-hitter arrived today.

The reprints are the season ticket style with the Bobby Ojeda image posted earlier in this thread.

The tickets appear to be exactly the same - the account number is printed on the tickets, and there is a barcode. The barcode on the reprints differs from that on the original, but since each barcode is unique, that's not a way to tell the difference.

However, there is one significant difference. The words "SEASON TICKET" do not appear on the reprint. So, thankfully, there is a way to tell the originals apart from the reprints.

Gary,
That's AWESOME news!

I should mention that some of the season ticket stock tickets do not say "Season Ticket". Some say "Plan Ticket", which would indicate that the ticket holder had purchased tickets to only a portion of the season, say 20 or 30 games. I purchased mine from one such plan holder and when I checked mine, this is what it stated.

Thanks for the follow up.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by MacDice

From one Seattle person to another....Jack In The Box really? In Seattle it is without question it's Dicks.

Not that there's anything wrong with that if that's who you are.

[Gary Dunaier]

Bringing an old thread back to life - tomorrow it will be a year since the post that precedes this one - the topic of tax liability on significant game-used baseballs came to mind again.

Am I correct in presuming that the fan who caught Derek Jeter's 3000th hit was immediately subject to taxes based on the presumed value of the ball in the secondary market? Even if he wanted to keep it, he'd still have to pay taxes on it.

I can't help but wonder... if Jeter's 3000th hit was an actual hit and not a home run - that is, the ball had stayed on the field, and was immediately put aside for Jeter - would Jeter have been subject to the same tax liability?

[baseballart]

Originally Posted by Gary Dunaier

Bringing an old thread back to life - tomorrow it will be a year since the post that precedes this one - the topic of tax liability on significant game-used baseballs came to mind again.

Am I correct in presuming that the fan who caught Derek Jeter's 3000th hit was immediately subject to taxes based on the presumed value of the ball in the secondary market? Even if he wanted to keep it, he'd still have to pay taxes on it.

I can't help but wonder... if Jeter's 3000th hit was an actual hit and not a home run - that is, the ball had stayed on the field, and was immediately put aside for Jeter - would Jeter have been subject to the same tax liability?

Gary

I can't comment on the US tax law, but in Canada, there would be no tax on a fan ( non-US citizen anyway) catching the ball and keeping it.

The interesting question (well, as a Canadian tax lawyer, at least interesting to me) is the fan's adjusted cost base on any subsequent sale for capital gains purposes. A gift gives the donee a cost base equal to fair market value; the Canadian tax authorities might argue the acqusition was not a gift and thus the cost base is zero (in Canada, a person gets a deemed minimum cost of $1,000 on personal use property, so the gain would only be on a sale in excess of $1,000)

Employees are taxable on any benefit arising by virtue of their employment. I've never seen an assessment on circumstances similar to your question, however.



Max

[tazdmb]

As a CPA, my personal opinion is this:

The person would not been subject to taxes for just catching the home run, where that was more an act of g-d than an intentional gift with a monetary value. Once he received all those gifts from Jeter and the Yankees with a clear fair value of over $600, he became subject to taxes.

[hcv123]

Originally Posted by CW

Thanks for posting that info, Gary. I also think that is BS, but it doesn't surprise me with out tax-happy government. By the same token, we, as taxpayers, should also be able to claim a deduction based on losses for all those games we attended in which we didn't catch a milestone homerun ball. I've spent a lot of money on baseball tickets and have yet to catch a milestone ball!

It seems like the purchasing of tickets in the pursuit of catching a ball would be considered an investment expense and should be deductible!!