godwulf
01-19-2013, 10:56 PM
Okay, this is a little unusual. Looking for some input on a slightly bizarre situation.
There's an eBay auction for a Baseball warmup jersey and a pair of uniform pants. The pants are easily identifiable as to player and year, but the jersey has no identifying tags, name, or anything else, though the Seller claims in the item description that it was worn by the same player who wore the pants. I don't collect a lot of pants, but I do really like the player, and the beginning bid price is only about fifty bucks.
Naturally, I wrote and asked the Seller how he knew who the jersey had been worn by, and he told me a story about being a player, himself, and having met the player in question through a guy who'd managed him on an independent league team - a team I happen to be very familar with, and I'm just about 100% certain this guy never played for them. He pointed out that if you click on his user name, you can see what appears to be a baseball card from that local team, showing him strapping on the catcher's gear. (I've been watching for memorabilia from this team for twelve years, and used to check out the souvenir stand every time I saw them play, and I never even knew anyone had produced a card set for the team.)
It gets better. The Seller also claims to have played in pro ball for 16 years, mostly in independent baseball in Canada and the U.S., but also in Japan and Mexico...also claims to have been in the farm systems of several clubs, and to have actually been called up to the Giants in '93 for one game, in which he didn't play.
Here's the thing: the man's name appears in none of the online Baseball references that I routinely use. His name appears on none of the rosters of the teams he claims to have played for. I even Googled his name, and all that came up were some online forum inquiries about him, with some people noting the same lack of data that I encountered, other people strongly objecting to anyone questioning the honesty or career of someone they knew as "a great player", other people claiming to be his relatives, and still others claiming that they were his real relatives and the other people were liars.
So...would you touch anything this guy had to sell with a 10-foot pole? He lives just one town over, so if I won the auction I'd probably ask to pick it up, rather than pay for shipping. Even without any kind of documents (or trustworthy word-of-mouth) on the jersey, I like the pants, and the jersey is pretty cool, too, even if it's just a store model. The guy has a 100% positive, 120-something feedback score. I'm almost tempted to go for it, just to get my hands on one of his cards (he offered to give me one), and meet this guy face to face.
Have you ever encountered somebody like this? It kind of reminds me of the guys who wear a bunch of medals and claim to be war heroes when they, in fact, never even served. It's just weird.
There's an eBay auction for a Baseball warmup jersey and a pair of uniform pants. The pants are easily identifiable as to player and year, but the jersey has no identifying tags, name, or anything else, though the Seller claims in the item description that it was worn by the same player who wore the pants. I don't collect a lot of pants, but I do really like the player, and the beginning bid price is only about fifty bucks.
Naturally, I wrote and asked the Seller how he knew who the jersey had been worn by, and he told me a story about being a player, himself, and having met the player in question through a guy who'd managed him on an independent league team - a team I happen to be very familar with, and I'm just about 100% certain this guy never played for them. He pointed out that if you click on his user name, you can see what appears to be a baseball card from that local team, showing him strapping on the catcher's gear. (I've been watching for memorabilia from this team for twelve years, and used to check out the souvenir stand every time I saw them play, and I never even knew anyone had produced a card set for the team.)
It gets better. The Seller also claims to have played in pro ball for 16 years, mostly in independent baseball in Canada and the U.S., but also in Japan and Mexico...also claims to have been in the farm systems of several clubs, and to have actually been called up to the Giants in '93 for one game, in which he didn't play.
Here's the thing: the man's name appears in none of the online Baseball references that I routinely use. His name appears on none of the rosters of the teams he claims to have played for. I even Googled his name, and all that came up were some online forum inquiries about him, with some people noting the same lack of data that I encountered, other people strongly objecting to anyone questioning the honesty or career of someone they knew as "a great player", other people claiming to be his relatives, and still others claiming that they were his real relatives and the other people were liars.
So...would you touch anything this guy had to sell with a 10-foot pole? He lives just one town over, so if I won the auction I'd probably ask to pick it up, rather than pay for shipping. Even without any kind of documents (or trustworthy word-of-mouth) on the jersey, I like the pants, and the jersey is pretty cool, too, even if it's just a store model. The guy has a 100% positive, 120-something feedback score. I'm almost tempted to go for it, just to get my hands on one of his cards (he offered to give me one), and meet this guy face to face.
Have you ever encountered somebody like this? It kind of reminds me of the guys who wear a bunch of medals and claim to be war heroes when they, in fact, never even served. It's just weird.