There is a lot that is going to be written about that ball. You know the one that I’m talking about… 756.
You know that what could be considered a tax event is mainstream when you see it announced on ESPN. And yes, there it was on the ticker yesterday: What are the tax consequences to the winner of the baseball lottery?
Baseball lottery. It’s a pretty apt description, I guess. Millions of ticket holders hold out hopes of catching a home run ball – just ask my brother (he of both baseball and baseball card collections) – and this wasn’t just any home run ball. It was a ball that marked the breaking of a record. Sort of.
You see, this is the reason that I just can’t get excited about this post. And usually, anything that combines sports and tax is pretty exciting. But this? This isn’t a record. Records are milestones, achievements that matter. This was a manufactured, selfish plot to get a name in a record book. And yes, I’ll go so far as to say that I have every belief that this wasn’t an honest achievement.
Bonds, to me, typifies a lot of what is wrong with professional sports. He didn’t do this for the love of the game. You didn’t hear him talking about what was best for the team. You didn’t hear him cheering his teammates onto a pennant or giving them words of encouragement. It was all about Barry. It was all about marking one up for himself.
And that’s why I can’t get all that excited about this ball and the tax consequences that could flow to the lucky guy who caught it. Cause to me, that ball is pretty worth this. It’s the equivalent of finding Milli Vanilli’s Grammy award – noteworthy only because of the sad circumstances that surround it.
Despite all of this, there will be a lot written about that ball and it’s worth in the press. There is already speculation about the tax consequences – is it income now or when it’s sold? I will give you my 30-second speculation on that… I think it’s income the second that he caught it. To use that lottery analogy again, the fan who caught that sport had an increase in wealth upon winning that lottery/catching that ball. And since this is an object that can clearly be sold immediately on the open market (experts are valuing it at $500,000), it is, for tax purposes, easy to ascertain the value.
I’m sure that there will be paper after paper written about the incredibly complicated tax issues surrounding the ball – how to value it, how to distinguish the income component from the capital gains component… I just don’t want to give this event that kind of press on my blog. Catching the ball was significant. Hitting the ball? In my opinion? Not so much.
Nothing to do with taxes – but your post made me think of the classic Broadway musical comedy DAMN YANKEES. The show is set in the 50’s, as that is when it was written.
Revivals of the musical also must be set in the 50’s – it can never be updated to current times. Why? The main idea of an athlete selling his soul to the devil is commonplace today. Plus the show features a song “I Thought About the Game” in which the ball players recant how they avoided “inappropriate behavior” because they were more interested in the game than their own pleasures. Such a song in today’s world of professional sports is more fantastic, and unbelievable, than the devil and a witch as main characters.
TWTP