Braves want Heritage to pull Hank Aaron items from auction

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by swarmee

It wouldn't surprise me if the Baseball Hall of Fame was sent the wrong base either, if the original Braves employee planned to keep them all for himself.

I think there's a relatively high possibility of that being the case.

Here's the lot of bases in question. Was harder to find then I expected. I haven't a clue if they are legit or not.

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...iption-071515#

[CardPadre]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

I think there's a relatively high possibility of that being the case.

Here's the lot of bases in question. Was harder to find then I expected. I haven't a clue if they are legit or not.

https://sports.ha.com/itm/baseball-c...iption-071515#

The HOF says they got the base directly from Hank Aaron in 1982. That’s as good a story as any here.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by CardPadre

The HOF says they got the base directly from Hank Aaron in 1982. That’s as good a story as any here.

Somebody gave Hank Aaron a base. I doubt he dug it out of the ground himself.

The HOF could very well have the real base...they just as easily could not.

Yeah, I'm cynical. I've seen too many items in museums and personal collections, obtained from the athlete themselves, that don't pass the sniff test.

Nat Fleischer ran The Ring Boxing Museum and had a ton of gloves on display going back to the 1950's and 60's that were given to him by the boxers themselves from various "important" fights. Half of them weren't even the right brand of glove LOL.

I don't think it's any type of purposeful deception from these athletes. This stuff wasn't even worth anything back in the day. I just don't think they were hung up on the accuracy of such things, as we are today. Especially since this has become a "business" as such.

[MantleMarisFordBerra]

Very interesting.

This reminds me of the mystery of Roberto Clemente’s 3000th hit bat. Here’s an incredibly fascinating piece from ESPN that strongly hints Clemente himself told at least three different people that he was giving them the bat he got his 3,000th hit with:

http://https://www.espn.com/espn/sto...o-clemente-bat

[gonefishin]

I'm not a legal expert by any stretch, but would someone please explain to me how a groundskeeper could just remove the bases, etc. and keep them as his own? I don't get it - was he stealing the bases? I'm guessing his job description explained what he was responsible for doing, but just taking things home and keeping them sounds illegal to me - but again - I don't know. It's not like the bags were thrown in the garbage and he picked them out of the dumpster while dumpster diving. I think he realized some sort monetary value and basically stole the items from the braves. I kind of base it on this train of thought: "An employee is prohibited from removing any items belonging to the company and taking them home as their possession".

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like they stole the bases from the Braves organization. In this case, possession does not mean ownership.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by gonefishin

I'm not a legal expert by any stretch, but would someone please explain to me how a groundskeeper could just remove the bases, etc. and keep them as his own? I don't get it - was he stealing the bases? I'm guessing his job description explained what he was responsible for doing, but just taking things home and keeping them sounds illegal to me - but again - I don't know. It's not like the bags were thrown in the garbage and he picked them out of the dumpster while dumpster diving. I think he realized some sort monetary value and basically stole the items from the braves. I kind of base it on this train of thought: "An employee is prohibited from removing any items belonging to the company and taking them home as their possession".

Maybe I'm wrong, but it sounds like they stole the bases from the Braves organization. In this case, possession does not mean ownership.

All that sounds reasonable, though I imagine it could be argued by the descendants of the groundskeeper that disposing of old/used equipment and supplies was part of the description of his job…..and that keeping or donating stuff may actually have been one of the perks of the job.

All that said, a lot must be taken on faith here. Who’s to say these bases weren’t from 1973 or 1975 or an entirely different set of bases from 1974. The provenance in the listing isn’t entirely forthcoming beyond somebody who knew somebody, who was somebody, who wrote something on a box that had some stuff in it.

Is the story real? Maybe. The value I guess is in how many people with deep pockets can you convince of this.

[ksfarmboy]

Let’s say something was stolen from a company in 1950. It’s now 2000 and the company has changed ownership 4 times and the item is recovered. Who has a right to the claim? Does it automatically pass to each new owner? What if the items were given away by the first owner but the last owner is now claiming it was stolen?