Today is one of my favorite family traditions:  taking my son to the Cincinnati Reds opening day game (As a life-long Red Sox fan, I am hoping to get the chance to scream at Pedro Martinez:  "Who’s Your Daddy?")

So with baseball on my mind, as well as the death of Pope John Paul II over the weekend, I have been trying to come up with a tax angle.  As it happens, Gail Richmond (Nova) shared with the TaxProf Discussion Group this story from the local Minnesota newspaper, which nicely brings these things together: 

Mike Sadek, a journeyman who played eight years with the San Francisco Giants, got Willie Mays to give him a dozen autographed baseballs.  He mailed one of the balls to President Clinton along with a blank ball and told him he could keep the Mays ball if he signed and returned the other ball to Sadek.  Clinton did it. He tried the same thing with Mikhail Gorbachev but never got back either ball. Then, through his contacts, he got the Pope to sign a ball for him when the Pope visited San Francisco. Sadek later gave the Pope’s ball to his son, who sold it for $34,000, which was split among Sadek, his son, and his daughter.  This would be great fodder for an income tax exam, asking students to explain the tax consequences of the:

• Exchange of the Mays-signed ball for the Clinton-signed ball
• Transfer of the Mays-signed ball to Gorbachev
• Sale of the Pope-signed ball