A few minutes after the only baseball ever signed by Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio sold for a stunning $160,000 (or $191,000 once you factor in Heritage's commission and other premiums), the upscale Uptown auction house offered a lot of 12 near-mint baseballs signed by Willie Mays, my old man's all-time favorite ball player (at least when he was a New York Giant). Valued at between $2,000 and $3,000, the dozen balls wound up going for the low, low price of $1,700. The very next item was a dozen balls signed by Bonds, who happens to Mays' godson. (When he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Bonds even wore the same number Mays sported when he played for the New York and then San Francisco Giants, 24.) Despite all the furor over Bonds' tarnished records, his dirty dozen went for more than Mays' 12 balls: $1,900. My dad was, to put it mildly, appalled. He leaned over and whispered, "Barry Fucking Bonds is worth more than Willie Mays? Bull. Shit." I love my dad. --Robert Wilonsky