“Dear Mr. Murphy, We want the opportunity to bid on the ball. Yours truly, The eBay community.”

This is the message that eBay is sending, via its homepage, to Matt Murphy the Queens New York resident who snagged the record-breaking 756th homerun ball hit by Barry Bonds on August 7th.

There have already been offers publicly submitted to purchase the ball for $500,000+ and many say that it could easily fetch $2 million or more. Murphy claims that he may, in fact, keep the ball. As a baseball fan, owning a part of history would be something more valuable than money, perhaps.

“…part of me wants to keep it. It’s the greatest American sports accomplishment in history. Part of me might want to sell it, but I really am leaning towards keeping it. It’s just too valuable, sentimental.” Matt said in an interview recently. Sure, Matt. Whatever you say…

There is no way he will keep this ball. The Sporting News is reporting that he may face taxation regardless of whether he sells the ball or not. Because he “acquired this asset” the IRS can tax him based on its estimated value. It could end up costing Murphy hundreds of thousands of dollars too keep this souvenir. CRAZY.

Many baseball fans would love to see him donate it to the Hall of Fame, but that is even less likely than him keeping it. This ball is not likely to ever see Cooperstown. Bonds has spoken his piece as well, stating that he “has never considered a homerun ball to belong to a player. Once a homerun is hit, it belongs to the fans”. Well, if Barry doesn’t want it, there are certainly thousands of people who do.

Matt, you’re going to sell the ball. Go ahead and do it. Quit pretending like you’re going to keep it. Make some money and change you’re life. Buy some Mets season tickets and a nice apartment in Queens. Enjoy your money, but don’t forget to give Uncle Sam what he’s got coming to him.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Baseball, Yada Yada, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.