White Hat Sports Headlines

Monday, February 11, 2008

St. Simmons


It’s no secret that one of the inspirations of this blog is Bill Simmons. His running diary’s are legendary such as my favorites; “The Lost Weekend” and “The Pilgrimage to Lambeau Field” not to mention his book “Now I Can Die in Peace”. Recently however, he has topped even himself with one of the most painful and most substantial columns of all-time.
While attending the Super Bowl with his dad, The Sports Guy realized that he had forgotten his good luck Wes Welker jersey and felt he needed to step up his regalia. He purchased a white Randy Moss jersey from a souvenir stand at University of Phoenix Stadium. The story of the game has been beaten to death at this point and the Sports Guy blamed the jersey for this and said that he would either throw away or burn the jersey.
Here’s where the story gets interesting, fans wrote in droves and wanted the jersey for memorabilia sake. The Sports Guy then decided that if that many people wanted it, why not auction it off to benefit the Jimmy Fund. One of the leading cancer researchers in the country and has the closest charity to team relationship with the Boston Red Sox. As a bonus, the winner also receives a signed copy of his book and has something that is truly rare on eBay right now; FREE SHIPPING!
It only took a matter of a couple hours for the bidding to exceed $1000.00; the auction was set to last a week. As of right now there is still 3 days and 21 hours left on the auction and the high bid is resting squarely on $5000.00. Which raises two questions; how big a celebrity does this mean Bill Simmons is? And, what jersey is selling for more than this?
As of right now the most expensive jersey on eBay other than the aforementioned Simmons/Moss jersey is a signed Walter Payton jersey, the price of which is $4500.00. Slightly behind Moss and Payton are a signed Tom Brady jersey, two Michael Jordan signed jersey’s in one lot and a set of Michael Irvin, Troy Aikmen and Emmitt Smith signed jersey’s. None of these are going for more money than the jersey Bill Simmons wore at Super Bowl XLII. With every good idea there are other people trying to duplicate that same idea, there is a jersey on eBay of Randy Moss that claims to have been purchased at the Super Bowl. The price is $800.00 and nobody has bid on it as of yet. This says maybe Bill Simmons is the man, but I’m not quite sure yet.
He’s got the number two most popular new podcast of 2007 with The B.S. Report and he is still the most searched for name on ESPN.com. Not only that but last November he set the record for longest live chat in ESPN.com history breaking the record previously held by Rob Neyer. He did the chat to raise money for the Jimmy V Foundation.
For a New England/Boston sports fan, he is the quintessential writer of this generation. It is just as common among my friends and me to talk about the latest Simmons column as it is for us to talk about a play from Sports Center or the new Rambo movie for example. His auction for the Jimmy Fund tops it all however, this is somebody using whatever celebrity they have for a dramatic good. I’m enjoying just following along and rooting for this jersey to go higher and higher. Someone will win this jersey, but because of this auction everybody really wins. This is “That” story from the Super Bowl that I can actually get behind, there’s always one. This is it.


~Sterling Pingree

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