New Yorkers and baseball fans will be tuning in when the Mets face the Yankees this weekend. Want to own a piece of history? If you’re a New York sports fan, the upcoming 2008 off-season will be a bonanza for you.

With the Yankees and the Mets both moving to gleaming new homes adjacent to their current stadiums for the start of the 2009 season, there’ll be opportunities galore to buy up seats, bricks, dirt, and supposedly even urinals for that special home bar or lounge.

Both Shea and Yankee stadiums are owned by the city and will be auctioned off this winter, legendary piece by legendary piece. John Gallagher, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office said that plans are currently in the works for the auction.

“We’re working closely with both organizations to come up with a plan to sell items as memorabilia,” Gallagher said, but could offer no further details as the said plans are still being negotiated. Officials at both ball clubs referred questions about the auction back to City Hall.

Rumors that the Mets and Yankees were in secret talks with the city to buy their stadiums back in order to maximize on profits at auction, first reported by the NY Post last month, couldn’t be confirmed.

The vacuum of information about what exactly will be sold—and how and by whom—is likely the cause of the fervent speculation among fans of both teams. Two die hard Yankee fans insisted at a recent game that they had heard about the urinals were being sold. Neither, however, seemed interested in buying, regardless of the asking price. But how good an investment is snapping up bits of the venues where Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle or (for Mets fans) Tom Seaver, Dwight Gooden, and Keith Hernandez made their names?

According to the experts, a lousy one. Sports memorabilia in general, they say, is a sure dud if you’re looking for any kind of return.

“It is never, never, ever a good investment,” says Pete Williams, an expert on sports memorabilia and the author of Sports Memorabilia for Dummies and Card Sharks.

Why? It’s fundamental economics: there’s far more supply than demand.

Consider that after the two New York auctions this winter, there will be more than 100,000 seats floating around along with countless bricks, stones, bags of dirt and other items—including, possibly, urinals. All of this doesn’t bode will for profit seekers.

“It will take quite some time for them to appreciate,” noted Richie Aurigemma, owner of two sites that sells collectible seats.

That time will be counted in decades, not years, the experts say.

Take, for example, seats from the Boston Garden, which was torn down in 1997. A set of three from the famed arena was recently listed for $550 on one website—not much more than fans paid when the place was initially auctioned. (The auction netted $2 million in all.)

By comparison, when Ebbets Field, once home to the Brooklyn Dodgers, was torn down in 1960, the team’s owner offered fans seats for free. Fewer of them are in circulation now, and they go for about $5,000 each today.

The problem for potential buyers this winter, Williams and others say, is that since the 1970s memorabilia has become big business and teams churn out items like signed baseballs or jerseys by the thousands, marketing them as “collectables.” The same holds true for baseball cards. At the time, no one thought of seats at Ebbets Field as an investment.

“You can’t manufacture rarity,” Williams quips. “There’s just too much of this stuff out there for it to have any value. I can’t think of a more buyer beware market.”

What’s more, Williams notes that the memorabilia market is rife with forgers and crooks, adding uncertainty to even seemingly “safe” buys, like a cap worn by Babe Ruth or a “Mean” Joe Greene game jersey. "It’s a totally unregulated market.”

That said, some items, if they pre-date the 1970s and can be authenticated (often a difficult task) can be worth a bit. But the same holds true for any antique.

So, when the auctioneer starts the bidding this winter, resist the temptation and use your cash to buy some tickets to a game for the family instead. You’ll only get that seat for a few hours, but it will almost certainly be a better use of your time and money.
 
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