HOF ROI

I made my first major investment back in 1993. It’s looking like a bad deal.

My prized asset wasn’t a stock or bond, but rather an Andre Dawson-model baseball bat signed by the Hawk himself. It cost around $150 or so, as part of a silent auction (I was interning for a rock radio station, and we were hosting a celebrity bartender night that included lots of ballplayers). I was only 17 years old, but vividly remember thinking: “When Dawson gets into the Hall of Fame, this will be worth a bunch of money.”

Well, Dawson just got stuffed again for the Hall. So did the equally-deserving Jim Rice, Dale Murphy, Jack Morris and Tim Raines. These were the best players alive when I was a kid, and watching them suffer revisionist devaluation is frustrating. Or maybe disheartening. Or both.

Imagine 20 years from now, if someone comments: “I guess Blackstone was a big deal, but their fund sizes were only $20 billion or so.” Same sort of relative nonsense.