The world's worst case of doctoring a baseball

The world’s worst case of doctoring a baseball

By Paul Whitefield

July 6, 2012 12 AM PT

OK, here’s the best argument yet for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: It clearly costs too much to become a doctor.

How else to take the news that a Connecticut family is selling a cherished memento to help pay off their son’s medical school debts?

Thirty-year-old Michael Gott of Stamford, Conn., has almost $200,000 in school loans, his mother explained. But, as luck would have it, there’s a little something tucked away in a drawer for a rainy day: a baseball.

And not just any baseball. It’s a ball that Yankees great Lou Gehrig hit for a home run in the 1928 World Series.

So, never mind that it’s been in the family for 84 years. Never mind that it was struck by one of the game’s most legendary players.

No, mom wants her son to be a debt-free doctor, and so -- with a nod to “The Natural” -- it’s “Goodbye, Mr. Spalding.”

“It should be in the hands of someone who really loves it and has a passion for it,” Gott’s mother, Elizabeth Gott, told the Associated Press. “Right now we have a passion for my son and his career.”

No kidding. And that passion has brought them to this? Do you suppose, late at night, Elizabeth wishes Michael would’ve chosen insurance or commercial real estate as a profession?

Especially because the family seemingly hasn’t gotten the news (from Fox News, that is) that President Obama and the Democrats have ruined America’s healthcare system, and that doctors of the future will be working for the government at something around minimum wage.

Still, the Gotts’ decision is certainly a free-market solution, which should make those uber-capitalists who argue that we have the best healthcare system in the world happy.

And who knows: Perhaps some Wall Street 1 percenter will buy the treasured ball and put it in his fancy Manhattan high-rise office. Surely there’s a Gordon Gekko or two left on the Street?

Or maybe, just maybe, the young Gott will realize his dream of becoming a doctor, and maybe, just maybe, the healthcare law won’t ruin America, and maybe, just maybe, Dr. Gott will make enough money to buy back the heirloom.

“Field of Dreams,” huh?

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