If Messi’s jerseys are worth $15m, what price for the balls of Bairstow and Buddy … and Schlossy’s shoe?

Friends?

The whole sporting memorabilia thing is getting out of hand. No, I don’t mean the industry side of it – where sports stars can sign 500 jerseys at a time, to be flogged off around the world – but the real sports memorabilia thing.

Instead of pointing to a golf ball and being able to say “I can’t believe I actually have one of the 50,000 golf balls John Daly has signed,” you get to say, “If you can believe it, this is the golf ball that dropped in the cup when he announced himself to the world by winning the 1991 PGA!”

It makes, of course, all the difference.

This week comes the news that Lionel Messi is putting up for auction five of the jerseys he wore during the World Cup in Qatar last year. They don’t include the one that Socceroo Cameron Devlin was able to very cleverly get after the Australia/Argentina match, simply by asking.

But here’s the thing. The reckoning right now is that those jerseys will go for a total of – get this – $US10 million ($15 million), which will be a post-war record! As we speak, AAP reports that the current record is the $US10.1 million ($15.4 million) paid last year for Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals jersey while in soccer, someone out there once paid £7,142,500 ($14 million) for the jersey that Diego Maradona wore when, with help from the hand of God, the Argentinian put England to the sword in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final 2-1.

Credit: Getty/Monique Westermann

It renews the question that your humble correspondent has previously addressed: in all of Australia’s sporting history what are our own most valuable relics/mementos?

Let’s quickly go over the ones I have previously identified, and then see what new ones might be added? The standouts are:

The Ashes urn. Beyond price, and not that it ever would go on sale. But if it did, it would be strangely worthless – as the entire spirit of the Ashes would be dead with that sale.

Phar Lap’s heart. It sounds ghoulish – and on a bad day, written from the perspective of 90 years later, I am starting to think it is – but his heart is in Canberra, his skeleton in NZ, and his mounted hide in Melbourne. Again, his heart will never go on sale, but maybe one day – seriously – it might be the go to give that fine animal a decent burial? (Am I out of line? Please advise. I can get Australians of the 1930s and 40s gazing on his heart with wonder, but do any still feel that?)

Phar Lap wins the 1930 Melbourne Cup.Credit: The Age

The winged keel. A feat of Australian engineering, derring-do and innovation, the famous keel is of course still attached to Australia II and on display in Fremantle Maritime Museum.

Cathy Freeman’s bodysuit, when winning the 400m in Sydney 2000. Now hangs in the National Sports Museum at the MCG. It was stolen from her dressing room on the night, only to be sent in anonymously fourteen years later, “You should have it … to let the people see.” There may be no honour among thieves, but there are clearly some sports fans.

Shane Warne’s baggy green Test cap. Not long before he died, Warne kindly donated his baggy green to help those who lost their homes during the Victorian and NSW bushfires, and it raised just over $1million – which, as far as I know, remains the current record for sporting memorabilia in Australia. In the wake of Warne’s tragic early death, the value of that cap has no doubt risen, as has, no doubt, the value of Shane Warne’s “Ball of the Century” wherever that is. In the words of a clever member of the Twitterati, last time I raised it, “Don’t ask Gatting, he’s still got no idea where it went.”

Sir Donald Bradman’s bat. The one he had in his kit for two decades sold in 2021 for $183,305. Yes, surprisingly low, but that was surely because Sir Donald signed so many for charity there must be at least 5000 of them out there, yes? I have one, and I know dozens of others who also have. As to Sir Donald’s baggy green cap, it sold in late 2020 to a businessman for $450,000.

These are surely the top half-dozen, yes?

Andrew Hilditch and Dennis Lillee with the aluminium bat.Credit: Fairfax Media

Honourable mentions can go to Dennis Lillee’s aluminium bat; Evonne Goolagong’s Wimbledon winning tennis frock, Steve Bradbury’s skates from his gold-medal win Peter Norman’s badge of the Olympic Project for Human Rights. And yes, all right, Trevor Chappell’s underarm ball, but that, too, is now in pride of place in the WACA Museum – and we must be getting close to having nothing left to say on that subject? Just where the sandpaper used by the Australian cricketers in Cape Town in 2018 is right now, is anyone’s guess, but I guess a start would be looking down Cameron Bancroft’s pants? If you could locate it, you might be able to trade it for Schlossy’s shoe, infamously “shat” in by team-mate Julian O’Neill, as they are roughly equal calibre.

All bar the sandpaper, though, have lasted the test of time. They were not only famous at the time, but are still either revered or heavily talked about, decades later. The question is, what might be added from the last couple of years?

I have three candidates, and will be interested to hear nominations for others.

1. The ball that Buddy Franklin kicked his 1000th goal with. Say no more. It kicked off one of the great sporting moments as tens of thousands of spectators stormed the pitch. And they said, (cough,) he’d never make it!
2. The ball kicked by Matilda Cortnee Vine in the World Cup penalty shootout, to finish the whole staggering Australia/France match with a 7-6 win to the goodies.
3. The ball used to run out Jonny Bairstow in this year’s Ashes. Not much of a market in England, I’d imagine, but it would likely sell very well here.

Meantime let’s see how the Lionel Messi jersey sales go. If they do go for an average of $3 million a pop, I reckon Cameron Devlin and his missus might be having a long discussion into the night, on just what to do with the one he has. How to sell a hot Messi for maximum return? Stay tuned!

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