Kobe’s beef: Mom, don’t sell my stuff
Kobe Bryant is in a court battle to try to keep his mother from auctioning off mementos from his high school days in Pennsylvania and his early years with the Los Angeles Lakers.
A New Jersey auction house filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Camden on Thursday for the right to sell the stuff after the NBA star’s lawyers wrote the firm telling it to cancel a planned June auction.
The disagreement is a high value, high-profile version of a question many families face: Can Mom get rid of the stuff a grown child left at home? In this case, the 900 mementos happen to be worth upward of $1.5 million.
Among the first 100 or so items Pamela Bryant intends to sell: the NBA star’s jerseys, practice gear and sweatsuits from Lower Merion High School; varsity letters, and a signed basketball from the 2000 NBA championship game.
According to court filings, Pamela Bryant struck a deal in January with Goldin Auctions in Berlin, N.J., which earlier this year sold a rare Honus Wagner baseball card for a record $2.1 million.
In its court filings, Goldin says Pamela Bryant told the auction house that she asked her son five years ago what he wanted to do with the items that were in her home.
”Kobe Bryant indicated to Pamela Bryant that the items belonged to her and that he had no interest in them,” the auction house’s attorneys wrote. So she put them in a $1,500-per-month New Jersey storage unit.
The challenge came Tuesday when Goldin sent a news release announcing the auction. By day’s end, Kobe Bryant’s lawyer had sent a cease-and-desist letter telling the auction house to call off the sale and return the items to him.
Kenneth Goldin, owner of the auction house, said he can’t cancel the auction because he’s already advanced $450,000 to Bryant’s mother and put money into advertising the auction.
Made in the USA
Dick Hayhurst, a former pitcher who now works as a broadcast analyst for the Toronto Blue Jays, said that Boston Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz was “absolutely” cheating by putting a foreign substance on the ball Wednesday.
Wrote Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com: “Brings to mind Gaylord Perry’s comment when asked if he put a foreign substance on baseballs: ‘Nope, Vaseline is made right here in the USA.’ ”
Bad reviews
Los Angeles Angels pitcher Michael Roth is no fan of the Athletics’ Oakland Alameda County Coliseum, tweeting: “This clubhouse has the thinnest toilet paper. Might have to contact the union about this … ”
Added Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “Yet another thing you never heard about in Moneyball.”
Quote of the day
“I’ve never come close in the Kentucky Oaks and I’ve always wanted to win this race so bad.” Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith, who rode 38-1 long shot Princess of Sylmar to victory in Friday’s Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs
Sports, Pages 20 on 05/04/2013