Dr. J, trophies and me

I should throw them away. They aren’t shiny, but they’re not really retro-cool, either. My Little League and basketball trophies are gathering dust on a shelf in my home office, all these years later.

I just can’t seem to toss them out. Heaven knows, I’m the only person on earth who knows what they represent. One of them, a basketball trophy, has an arm broken off. Another is just a square of marble and a ball on top, with no identification whatsoever.

Yet I hang on to them like they’re priceless.

At the same time, I seem to have lost all my high school track medals.

I bring that up because I just read a story about Julius Erving selling his NBA and ABA memorabilia. Among the reported items: a 1983 Philadelphia 76ers World Championship ring, his ABA championship rings from 1974 and 1976 with the New York Nets and MVP trophies and jerseys from both his NBA and ABA days.

They say his NBA championship ring will fetch a minimum $25,000, while his ABA rings are worth $20,000 apiece, minimum. Some of the proceeds are reportedly going to charity. I’m fairly certain my church ball and Little League trophies wouldn’t fetch that much. At the same time, it seems sad to me that players get in the position of needing to sell the mementos of their careers.

I keep mementos and I didn’t even have a career.

Erving’s reps say it isn’t a matter of financial duress. Unrelated reports say a golf course he bought in 2006 is in financial trouble. Either way, it seems strange to me that he’d sell those things.

Maybe we can make a trade.