By Brad Locke
October 1, 2004

(AgapePress) - Professional athletes aren't the only citizens of the sporting community susceptible to greed and posturing.

All it takes to uncover that truth is a historic home run ball, an item that's been flooding the market the past six years. The latest was Barry Bonds' 700th career homer, which a man named Steve Williams wound up with on September 17. As of this writing, two other fans have come forward claiming Williams wrested the ball from their possession during the mad scramble for the round chunk of cowhide. The incident is almost an exact repeat of what happened in 2001, when Patrick Hayashi and Alex Popov both claimed ownership of Bonds' 73rd home run of the season.

A quick review: the two men were eventually ordered by a judge to auction the ball and split the proceeds. It sold for a disappointing $450,000, and the pitiful irony is that each man's take didn't even cover his legal expenses. Apparently the current parties do not remember that, but then, people these days have a habit of forgetting history.

Everyone involved is claiming to be a victim. What they don't realize is that they are being victimized by nothing else but their own selfish desires.

Let me pause for a moment to say that I'm sure there were a handful of fans who wanted the ball not for the supposed glory it would bring, but for the chance to be a part of history. Nothing wrong with that. For all I know, Williams is one of those folks. In fact, he said, in a Reuters story, "People are going to look at us like we're greedy or something like that, and all that I am doing is defending myself. I have no choice."

We mustn't forget, however, that Williams is a full-grown man who dove into a dog pile (as we called it in college) for a little white orb that only moments earlier was just another ball in a bag full of them, a ball with no distinguishing characteristics -- kind of like all those fans who collapsed around the ball's landing area like flies on a carcass, driven by nothing but an insatiable hunger for money and 15 minutes of fame.

I personally hope Williams gets to keep it, because these other two knuckleheads are telling conflicting stories, which probably means they're both lying. Each claims he had possession first, and as the saying goes, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Of course, that adage doesn't define possession for us, but the dueling plaintiffs both say they had the ball pinned beneath their legs. Oh, sure, that constitutes possession -- if you're playing Hacky Sack.

Apart from that, I hope all involved realize that the fight over this ball is a frivolous one. They are all banking on this ball bringing them happiness. It's the kind of greediness God warns against in Ecclesiastes, through the words of Solomon: "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. (5:10)" And like my old No Fear T-shirt said: "He who dies with the most toys ... still dies."

Williams at least realizes the idiocy of this litigation. "Unfortunately, me and the other gentlemen, we're going to come out the biggest losers of all," he said.

I remember as a child -- during those heady days of baseball card collecting -- cycling furiously to Seller's convenience store to spend all my money on packs of cards. One day as I was checking out and anticipating what those little presents held -- besides stale gum -- the cashier told me that a man had come in earlier wanting to buy up all the boxes of cards, no doubt to resell the Roger Clemenses and Darryl Strawberrys at a profit. That moment opened my eyes to how greed strips of innocence whatever it touches.

That is man's problem. Everything God created was and is good, but man desecrates these things through greed, pride, neglect or abuse. One of these days, when Williams and Hayashi and all these other men are dead and gone, the baseballs they so fervently sought after will be sitting on a shelf or in a box somewhere -- just another ball, another worthless trinket, in a world full of them.