Jersey helps charity
A secretly buried jersey that was supposed to start a curse has instead become a goodwill gesture between longtime baseball rivals.
The official charity of the Red Sox, the Jimmy Fund, began an eBay auction Thursday for the David Ortiz jersey that was buried under the New York Yankees’ new stadium by a Boston fan hoping to create a hex.
All proceeds will go to the children’s cancer charity, which is affiliated with Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The jersey was recovered Sunday and the Yankees sent it to the Jimmy Fund.
The auction lasts for one week. The starting bid was $500 for the No. 34 jersey, a brand new jersey and two seats to a Red Sox game.
“It’s certainly a very, very valuable piece of property,” said Mike Andrews, the chairman of the Jimmy Fund and a former Red Sox second baseman.
“We’re bitter rivals when we go on the field, but there’s one thing we have in common and that’s the fight against cancer,” he said. “I think it was wonderful they thought of us immediately, but I’m not surprised.”
Construction worker Gino Castignoli, a Red Sox fan from the Bronx, had dropped the jersey in wet concrete, apparently trying to jinx the Yankees.
Tipsters led the Yankees to the jersey’s location, under 2 feet of concrete in a service corridor.
The jersey didn’t fare well underground. It was torn from the jackhammers and stained, and some of the letters spelling “Red Sox” on the front are falling off.
“We’re very happy that the end result of everything is that the Jimmy Fund is the one that’s going to benefit,” Red Sox spokesman John Blake said. “That’s a great thing.”
Ryan Reardon, an 8-year-old Red Sox fan and cancer patient at Dana-Farber, helped unveil the jersey at the hospital. He said he felt good about the Yankees, since they’re helping the Jimmy Fund.
When asked how long he expected that to last, he replied: “Just today.”
ESPN reveals Tejada’s true age
Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada told the team he’s actually 33, two years older than he’s listed in the club’s media guide and other baseball records after being shown a copy of his birth certificate by ESPN.
“I was a poor kid,” Tejada said before the Astros finished a three-game series against Philadelphia. “I wanted to sign a professional contract, and that was the only way to do it. I didn’t want or mean to do anything wrong.”
Tejada was actually 19 when he signed out of poverty-stricken Bani, Dominican Republic.
At the time, he said, a local coach encouraged him to say he was 17.
ESPN said it showed Tejada a copy of his birth certificate from the Dominican Republic during an interview Tuesday. Tejada said at the start of the interview that he was born in 1976. After he was shown the birth certificate, he walked out of the interview.
“It was brought to our attention that the date we carry for Tejada, the year of birth, is incorrect,” general manager Ed Wade said. “But the fact of the matter is he’s playing like he was 25.”
Wade and Tejada both said the shortstop’s green card, driver’s license and other legal papers in the United States reflect his actual birthday.