Photo: chris.ptacekA lot of people are saying that Christian Lopez, the guy who caught Derek Jeter‘s 3,000-hit homerun ball, got hosed by the Yankees when he gave it back in return for some signed memorabilia and Yankees tickets worth an estimated $70,000. According to a Bloomberg article, the ball’s estimated value could be as high as $250,000. So the knee-jerk reaction of a lot of headlines was to assume that Lopez left $180,000 on the table, even though last month, Bloomberg reported a much more conservative estimate of between $75,000 and $100,000 for Jeter’s 3,000-hit ball.
I’m not saying it couldn’t go for $250,000, but assuming it’s a given seems presumptive. Read what Rick Harrison, star of the cable show Pawn Stars, has to say about the likelihood of the ball fetching $250K at auction.
That’s perfect world, perfect buyer stuff. This wasn’t a unique ball in the sense that it established a big-league record. Getting 3,000 hits is a great accomplishment, but not unique like a 61-homer baseball was in 1961. Or even Mark McGwire’s 70th homer ball before he was tainted by steroids (sold for $3 million, now estimated at $150K). Jeter became the 28th man to do it. Craig Biggio is on the list. How much do you think his 3,000-hit ball would go for? You’d need multiple major Yankees fans at an auction with money to burn and the luxury market has dried up in this economy.
Considering Lopez and his girlfriend paid only $65 a piece for the seats to Saturday’s game, walking out with $70,000 worth of Yankees swag strikes me as doing just fine.
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Now imagine if the Yankees were the ones with the proverbial bargaining chip. Think they would have given it up?
Dude got hosed.
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Can we be sure that there was not a quick back room deal cut between Mr. Lopez and the Yankees? It does seem a little too “All American/The Yankee Way” to be true…
Isn’t it expected to return the ball? Stadium etiquette?
As a a fan for a team in the AL East that will never see anything but the basement as long as the Yankees and Red Sox keep stacking up their payrolls, I’d have held out for enough money that they had to dig into their salary budget!
I think he made out as good as possible. The fan made it clear he did not want anything in return for giving Jeter the ball. The Yankees, on their own, gifted him seats for the year. Since he did not seek or ask for compensation in return for the ball, he should not be taxed. Had he held out or put the ball up for auction, he would have been taxed for the money made on the transaction.
The last part is true: “Had he held out or put the ball up for auction, he would have been taxed for the money made on the transaction.”
But, as to the first part, the taxman doesn’t care about his mental state, whether or not he wanted anything in return for the ball, nor how big-hearted and gratuitous the Yankees seemed by what they did. The taxman just doesn’t believe that people or organizations are so kind as to give away $70+ to a complete stranger (even if he is a fan) as a “gift”.
The undisputable fact is he walked away with beaucoup goodies, for what? It will either be deemed a taxable sale of the ball, a prize for being the lucky catcher, or compensation for his role in some good publicity. No matter how you characterize it, it will be deemed ordinary income to Christian Lopez and he’ll have to cough up @31% in federal, state and local taxes. Tough luck for a guy who already has $100k debt and probably only makes $30k to $35k a year. He’d better do his beat to sell those tickets for as much as he can . . .
70k worth of stuff. but how much of that 70k is worth Mr Lopez? One guess is that he got more than he could use/enjoy. I’d say actual real worth to Mr Lopez is around half that at around 30k. He left around 40k on the table. Remember this is NY, and there will be a lot of Yankee fans. NY Yankee is the symbol of baseball, he’ll get 75k no problem 150k tops. He definitly got hosed.
Another thing is, he probably took the first offer, on the spot. First offers usually means he got hosed. No question.
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Since Christian Lopez owes about $200,000 in college loans, it doesn’t seem wise to donate anything to the multimillionaire Jeter or the billionaire Yankees, who made millions in merchandise sales on that day alone.