When considering purchasing memorabilia on eBay you’ve got to be careful.  Often items are misrepresented and it takes a little research to get to the truth.  Some sellers are probably ignorant or were told something misleading when they originally acquired the piece.  Or…they are devious, crafting the ruse to inflate the sale price. This edition of eBay Watch takes a look at two items that are not what the seller suggested. The first fraud is a pennant, with the auction title claiming it was a “killer 1910’s MICHIGAN WOLVERINES FOOTBALL PENNANT”: While it still might be “killer”, it’s definitely not from the 1910s as described.   The seller is apparently hanging the 1910s date on the fact that it “turned up in the same estate as the 1915 Michigan yearbook & 1915 Michigan commencement program.” So Encyclopedia Brown, do you know why this can’t be from the 1910s?  Avid eBay Watch fans should know. The key is the Michigan seal with the 1817 date.  As discussed in late March of this year, the university didn’t use the 1817 date on the seal until the late 1920s, as prior to that the accepted founding date of the school was 1837. While I don’t know how that would impact the value of the pennant, bidders paid nearly $50.  I’m guessing the buyer was…

Michigan softball coach Carol Hutchins joined Sam Webb and Andy Evans on WTKA this morning.  As usual, she’s a wonderful guest and always worth a listen.  If you told me I’d be thrilled to listen to a woman’s softball coach a decade ago  I would fight you.    There’s little arguing that she’s the best coach on campus – not bad for a Spartan (’79), huh? Her Wolverines advanced to the Super Regional last weekend and will face Baylor tomorrow at the Wilpon Complex.  Details here.  I went to the games last year and I suggested you get there early. Here’s the audio from the interview: [display_podcast] Notes: As mentioned in the interview, the games will be televised on ESPN.  Hutchins had some interesting stats on the ratings for those games, “Last year’s Series outdrew every Major League Baseball game but two.”  Wow! Related: * Follow Michigan Softball on Twitter * MVictors on Twitter!

Hilarious:  Notre Dame omitted the losing seasons from Weis’ year-by-year biography on page 15 of the 2009 Spring Prospectus and page 90 of the 2008 football media guide. Among the omissions is the Irish’s 3-9 2007 season. The 2007 statistics appear on page 91 in the 2008 guide and in the school’s year-by-year history, among other places. The decision to omit those records goes back to when Weis was hired in 2005 without any prior head coaching experience. Notre Dame’s media relations department said Monday that it treated his coaching history like that of an assistant – only accentuating the positive. Michigan didn’t exactly highlight the 2008 struggles, at least in the Spring media guide.   The header and all-time coaching record on Rodriguez’s bio clearly points out the 3-9 record, but the bio jumps right from talking about how he’s the 18th U-M football coach and 11th since Yost, and right into his accolades at WVU:

Jim Carty made his last call into WTKA this morning, at least for the summer very possibly for good.  It seems his new “regular” life in law is taking quite a hold.  From Carty’s site Paper Tiger No More: As a result of the internship, I told the fellas at WTKA last night that I’m saying farewell to our weekly Monday morning spot. There would likely be times my responsibilities to the court would interfere with a regularly scheduled gig, and I don’t want to be either juggling both or repeatedly bailing on WTKA. Today will be the last appearance at least for a while (link here when available). We’re saying it’s for the summer, but I think it might be for good. It always feels a bit odd to be introduced as “former Ann Arbor News sports columnist Jim Carty”, and it’ll get weirder in a few weeks when there is no A2 News. Although I very much enjoy the spots and love the guys, it’s always better to leave early than late. I’m not sure how much I’ll bring to the table as time goes on, and my interests at this point are truly much more oriented toward the law than sports. It’s a loss.   Of course the morning show will survive without a segment or two of…

Buckeyes everywhere are celebrating the 2000 days that have passed since Michigan defeated Ohio State.   That’s fine.  Whatever.  More importantly, it’s been about 2000 days since my last appearance in Sports Illustrated via this shot highlighting me and MVictors contributor “Lew”: I still have that lucky yellow hat. I don’t know if this photo won any awards; I haven’t been contacted.  I should have asked SI’s Richard Deitsch about it when I was in studio on WTKA with he and John Bacon a couple weeks ago.   Next time.

ESPN’s Colin Cowherd today once again recounted the tale of his incident with former Michigan blog M Zone, telling listeners that the reason he can’t reply to email is because the guys at the M Zone ratted him out to his boss.  “What guy does that?”, he asks. “They thought they got me.  What they did is screw you. They limited access.” Here’s a bad snippet of the audio: [display_podcast] His memory is at least getting a little better, recalling that the issue was that he used content from the blog site on his show but failed to acknowledge the source.  Back in January he brought up the incident and said, “I don’t even know what happened”. Related: Spawn of M Zone!

Photo: Bettmann/Corbis If you missed it, in the wake of the allegations that A-Rod ran a pitch-tipping scheme earlier in his career, here’s a story from the NY Times about the Tigers gift wrapping an at-bat for Yankee legend Mickey Mantle.  An excerpt: “When I got there, Denny said, ‘Hey, big guy, should I let him hit one?’ ” Price recalled Thursday night in a telephone interview. “I said it was a great idea. Mickey was always nice to me. So I went back behind the plate and Mickey, like he always did, was tapping the plate with his bat when I said, ‘Want us to groove one for you?’ ” Mantle apparently didn’t believe Price, but when he saw McLain nodding on the mound, he understood what was going on. “High and tight, mediocre cheese,” Price said Mantle responded. Full story here.