• The Dark Side…of Sports Memorabilia

    I’ve run the eBay Watch series for a couple years and occasionally I uncover some unsettling personal details related the memorabilia involved.  In June 2008, the auction of an 1986-87 championship ring resulted in a saga ending with a former teammate contacting the player who sold the ring to make sure everything was cool. In January of ‘08, I featured the auction of a U-M football ring that was alleged to be a salesman’s sample with the name “McCartney” adorning the side of the band.  After posting a photo I was contacted by the wife of former coach Bill McCartney who claimed that ring was no sample: it belonged to her husband and yes, he wanted it back. Recently a seller posted a bunch of photos from the turn of the last century including one featuring an old favorite of mine, hero and captain of Fielding Yost’s wonderful 1909 Wolverine team, Dave “Pig” Allerdice sitting criss-cross applesauce: I wrote extensively on the 1909 season in Brian Cook’s epic Hail to the Victors 2009 & I hope you had a chance to read it.  Allerdice’s 1909 crew suffered an early setback to Notre Dame but recovered, smoking fools for the rest of the season including powerful Minnesota (and for the first time, U-M walked off with a prestigious piece of pottery)…