( CNN ) -- Can your credit card buy you a second-hand memory ? Is it possible to purchase the warmth of recollection in a cash transaction ? Apparently a lot of people think so . According to Richard Sandomir of The New York Times , former New York Yankee Chris Chambliss recently decided he would endeavor to sell the bat he swung and the ball he hit to win the 1976 American League Championship Series . Sell them he did . For $ 121,874 . And Mike Eruzione , captain of the 1980 `` Do you believe in miracles ? '' U.S. Olympic hockey team , decided to find out how much the uniform he wore in the defeat of the Soviet team would bring . He found out , all right : $ 657,250 . There seems to be a growth market in the items found in the closets and storage lockers of retired big-name athletes . For many of them , it makes perfect sense to cash in on the old uniforms , gloves , balls , bats , gym shoes and cleats . The allure of all that scuffed and fraying stuff shines brighter to strangers , and the athletes , as the years pass , have families with their own financial needs . But three names in Sandomir 's story jumped out , because each of the three athletes proved to me , a long time ago , that the finest memories are free . Bill Mazeroski , the second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates who won the World Series against the Yankees in 1960 with a thrilling home run , is selling his old gear at an auction next month . The family of the late golfer Sam Snead sold the claret jug he won at the 1946 British Open for $ 262,900 . Bob Cousy , the great guard for the Boston Celtics , sold just about all the uniforms and memorabilia in his basement for around $ 320,000 , which he gave to his two daughters : `` That was a much greater priority than hanging on to it . '' Maybe the people forking over their money for the sweat-stained clothes will find a lasting connection through their ownership . Yet as soon as I saw Mazeroski 's name , I thought about a long-ago afternoon when he gave a buddy and me something beyond price : his time . When my best friend Jack Roth and I were 12 years old and crazy about sports , we hatched a plan . Any time there was a big sports awards dinner in our Ohio town -- one of those events that would bring in famous athletes as draws -- we would meet at one of our houses and go to two separate telephones . We 'd call the hotel where we knew the event was being held , and we 'd lower our voices a few octaves and ask for the room of the sports star we dreamed of talking to . Sometimes it worked ; sometimes it did n't . And sometimes , even when we got through , the athlete would decline to talk with us . We even loved those moments -- at least we 'd been able to briefly hear the voice of the famous quarterback or center fielder , even if all he was saying was `` No . '' When an athlete would agree to talk with us , though -- we said we wanted to do a sports interview , but were a bit vague in specifying that our only outlet was a little self-produced mimeographed newspaper -- it was something we sensed , even at the time , that we would never forget . And we never did . Jack died nine years ago , and in his final months we reminisced about those afternoons , and about our gratitude for the athletes who had given us those memories . Bill Mazeroski and Sam Snead were two of them who were the most generous with us ; sure , they may have just been killing time in the hours before they had to go down to the banquet room , but they shared a little of that time with us . We did n't own a tape recorder -- Jack would hold one receiver of those big old rotary-dial phones , and I would do the same on another extension in the house , and we would trade off questions and take notes -- and I 'm glad that we did n't have tapes , because if we had , the tapes might have replaced the memories , the tapes might have become cold stand-ins . ( I do n't need a tape to recall , with a smile , what one celebrated ballplayer told us after we asked him our standard final wrap-up question : `` What is your advice for young athletes ? '' His reply : `` Keep them grades up . '' ) And Bob Cousy ? He never came to our town , as far as I knew . But some of us , as kids , would , just about every day , send an envelope to one famous professional athlete or another in big-league cities . Inside each envelope was a pre-stamped , self-addressed postcard . We would hope that , before or after a game , the athlete , opening his fan mail in the locker room , would see our postcard , sign his name on it and drop it in a mailbox . It was like playing the lottery . You never knew . One day , when the mail carrier arrived at my parents ' home , there it was : the postcard I had sent to Bob Cousy in care of the far-off Boston Garden , now bearing his signature , with a personal inscription to me above it . It was just such a great day . Decades later , when I would get to know Cousy , and I would run into him from time to time , I would always remind him of that story , and would always thank him anew . Being a gracious man , he would smile and say it was nothing . It was n't nothing . It was everything . I hope that the people who are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in pursuit of memories of their sports heroes will feel that they got their money 's worth . But the best memories in life , the most enduring , are nontransferable , and never for sale . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene .
Big-name athletes are cashing in on old uniforms and balls to the tune of a lot of money . Bob Greene : Is it possible to buy the warmth of recollection in a cash transaction ? He recalls some of his sports heroes who gave him something beyond price : their time . Greene : I was at an event where there were two hundred people, all wearing jerseys with names like Joe Montana or Barry Bonds.