Braves want Heritage to pull Hank Aaron items from auction

[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.