While I don’t often troll Web auctions looking for useless hooey, I occasionally binge as an act of expensive procrastination. The allure of auction browsing is that it’s never the thing you should be doing. After learning that a used jockstrap from Cincinnati Bengal running back Corey Dillon sold recently on eBay for $80, I logged on, curious about similar buying opportunities. At any given moment, eBay lists no fewer than 1,500 items described as “game used” or “game worn,” and they seem to have a clear geographic bias toward Chicago: Quentin Dailey’s size 12 Pony low-tops, Don Zimmer’s dusty cap, Alfrederick Hughes’s jersey, worn during his brief stint with the San Antonio Spurs. I’d say these items were reasonably priced, but then again, my credibility is limited: the memorabilia vortex sucked me in and in a flash I’d shelled out $56 for Artis Gilmore’s shorts.
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“How much for the Staub?” I asked the vendor.
No one actually seemed to be paying these lofty prices, though. Dealers and patrons haggled everywhere, swapping items of questionable worth and wringing their hands over each deal. After all, how can anyone gauge the true value of U.L. Washington’s toothpicks, except by an equivalent number of Tito Fuentes headbands?
