Derek Jeter's 3000th hit home run ball was caught by 23 year old cell phone salesman Christian Diaz.
Rather than go straight to Ebay on his smart phone and opening the bidding, some people appraising the ball to be worth $250,000 in the open market, maybe more to Jeter or the Yankees, he offered it back to Jeter no strings attached.
Immediate outpouring calling him a moron or an idiot commenced. As if the guy was obligated to make Derek Jeter's historic moment about him and how much money he could bleed out of have seat that intersected with the Derek Jeter home run ball trajectory.
Maybe the guy is a lifelong Yankees fan (likely). Maybe he's a Derek Jeter fan (likely). So maybe he didn't want to hold a moment of New York Yankee history hostage. So he returned the ball to Jeter. Jeter's been a classy player throughout his career and he's certainly deserving of not having to go through major hoops to get a milestone ball back. The Yankees gave Diaz a bunch of autographed merchandise and box seats for the rest of the year, including the playoffs. That should have been a tax-free gift from the Yankees. It may dumbfound the money grabbers but sometimes the common man is deserving of a high priced gift.
As a baseball fan that's spectacular. Why the guy was obligated to cash in with a bank of money is beyond me. It's because the majority of people are self-absorbed "ME ME ME ME IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!" people.
I'm not going to say I wouldn't have had a "Mr. Jeter, I have these debts and I'm living paycheck to paycheck and if we could arrange "X" dollars to help out my situation, since I understand that a "gift for historical ball exchange" is pretty common" conversation with Jeter and the Yankees. But I totally wouldn't have started the Ebay bidding and sold the ball to some private collector.
Jeter deserved the ball back. The guy gave him back. What he felt was reasonable in return is totally his call.
The IRS though immediately started looking at the value of his box seats and figuring anywhere from a $5000-$14,000" tax bill, so the guy was looking at getting screwed because he accepted amazing seats far beyond anything that would normally happen to him in lieu of piles of cash. He got no cash but would have to pay a ton.
Ridiculous. But Miller beer and a couple other companies have offered to pay that tax bill and they're also donating some proceeds to pay for his college debt and some other things he opted to not cash in and sell out for. Awesome!
And amazing on the guy to resist all the temptation that came with a money ball landing in his hands and not thinking entirely about himself. He asked nothing. The Yankees and Derek Jeter are the ones who gave. It could be said even that they should have given more, so companies wouldn't have to step in to save him from the buzzards at the Internal Revenue Service. Christian Diaz deserved such a gift. It was good karma coming back around.
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