Former Miami Marlins president David Samson doesn’t want to run an MLB team again, and he says that makes it easier for him to be honest about what goes on. That, apparently, means absolutely eviscerating New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter.
Of course, Samson has plenty of reasons to not be pleased with Jeter. As part owner and CEO of the Marlins, Jeter fired Samson in the most impersonal way possible. According to Samson, he found out via a push notification from ESPN.
“Derek Jeter was the perfect person to buy a team because he didn’t use his money,” Samson told Front Office Sports. “And he had someone in the name of Bruce Sherman who let him do anything he wanted with absolutely no accountability. And if you can get that kind of job, you might as well go get it.”
From there, as Samson explained, Jeter simply tried to reverse what the Marlins had been doing previously.
“He was able to bring in all his own people and he thought that everything that I did was bad. So he erased anything I had done. And figured he could do Costanza, which is opposite day. Anything I did, he did the opposite and assumed it would work,” Samson said.
“He assumed that he could get a bigger TV deal. He assumed he could get a big naming rights deal, that he’d get tons of season ticket holders, that he would make the team a winning team. And after four years, I think he realized that being a shortstop and being an executive are two totally different things…. And I think he realized quickly that being a pitch man for Subway was probably going to be more up his alley than running the team every day and being accountable for that.”
Babe Ruth Bat Sells at a Record Price
Babe Ruth is one of baseball’s greatest legends. Because of that, memorabilia of his is incredibly valuable. Now, a baseball bat of his has sold at a record price.
Known as the “Polo Grounds Bat,” this bat is in excellent condition and comes with photo corroboration. It dates to around 1921, a season when the New York Yankees played at the Polo Grounds.
That year, Babe Ruth hit 59 home runs. He also set the career home run record that season at 139. That’s a far cry from the 714 he ended his career with, but shows how much better Ruth was than other players of his era.
Hunt Auctions sold the bat and announced that it went for $1.85 million. That’s a record price for a baseball bat.
“It is without surprise that the Babe has once again pushed yet another sports memorabilia category to record pricing territory,” said David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions. “This baseball bat is as close to a work of art as the medium can allow.”
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