"Moneyball" turns junk jersey into treasure
It's easy to accumulate years of memorabilia and items, but if you're anything like CBS News correspondent Steve Harman, it's hard to part with your stuff.
Harman took viewers on a tour of his own basement in Catskill, N.Y. to show how one wife's trash might actually be her husband's treasure.
Over the years, Hartman has collected empty salt containers from great camping trips and dentures from deceased grandparents. While each item has sentimental value for him, his wife Andrea Hartman finds everything to be a big pile of clutter. Even Happy Meal Toys in their original packaging aren't safe from her sweeping glare.
"Throw it away," Andrea Hartman said.
Unlike her husband, Andrea Hartman doesn't believe in saving something just because it may be worth something eventually. While she's normally right about things like the paper plates from the 1960s, she was wrong about one key item that could be worth keeping the whole lot.
Steve Hartman was able to get his number on a Toledo Mud Hens game jersey in 1986 when the team was getting rid of their old uniforms. They gave him number 26, the jersey of an unmemorable player who made it to the major league but never made his mark.
It wasn't until 27 years later that player - Billy Beane - finally began to get attention. Beane's story was portrayed in "Moneyball," the Oscar-nominated film about the failed ball player who went on to become the game-changing Oakland A's general manager. Brad Pitt, who plays Beane in the movie, is up for Best Actor in this years Oscar's.
"So this is quite rare," said Howard Schwartz, who owns Grandstand Memorabilia. "And, should Billy Beane get into the Hall of Fame one day, you definitely have a valuable item on your hands."
Steve Hartman has framed the jersey as a reminder to his wife that, at least in this instance, he was right to keep the jersey. But, as for the other stuff, Andrea Hartman will continue to remain a skeptic and keep nagging Steve Hartman to part with his "junk"
That's exactly why the jersey still remains in the basement.
