Aaron letter worth $21,000, at least to one man

Memorabilia collector hopes to meet hero Hank Aaron

Here is the letter, nine lines long, written on a two-hole sheet of notebook paper. It is an old letter, speckled with time, folded and unfolded and, finally, placed in a plastic sheath collectors call a "top loader."

Jeffrey Gitomer holds the sheath up to eye level.

"Mobile, Alabama," he says. "November 22, 1951."

He begins to read.

"Dear Mr. Pollack. I receive you letter, and it is entirely satisfactory with my parents Mr. & Mrs. Aaron, that I may join the Indianapolis Clowns next season."

The words were written to Syd Pollack, owner of a Negro League baseball team. The author is 17-year-old Henry Aaron, the future home run king, not yet a professional baseball player, even then polite and dignified. "My parents Mr. & Mrs. Aaron." So intimate. Priceless.

Well, not priceless. Four months ago, Gitomer, a Charlotte businessman, paid $21,000 for the letter at a sports auction outside Philadelphia. He outlasted several others, including the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, ultimately bidding the most anyone remembers for a modern athlete's penned note.

And yes, he would be the first to say he might have overpaid. But Hank Aaron is his hero, and if we're to learn anything about those who collect pieces of heroes, it's this: Value is defined as how badly you want something.

What is it that Gitomer wants?

He is 62 years old, a college dropout who has built a sales training empire. He has written eight best-selling books -- including the original, Little Red Book of Selling -- each a blend of pep talking, pants kicking, digestible sales tips.

"In any field," he says, "there is an expert, a world-class expert, and there's THE world-class expert. I'm THE world-class expert in sales."

The longtime Charlottean also is owner of a startling collection of sports memorabilia, housed in a well-wired hideaway secret to most who know him. There, he keeps jerseys and balls and programs and photos, most of them one of a kind.

It's a world we sometimes sneer at but kind of understand, a universe that begins with a kid leaning a 10-cent baseball card against a nightstand lamp and ends with an adult paying thousands, tens of thousands, for that same kind of connection.

"I bid to own," he says. "Not to outbid someone else. I buy what I want."

What he wants, more than most of the pieces he already has, is something he can't buy. He wants to meet the man who wrote the letter in his hands.

"Sincerely yours," he reads. "Henry Aaron."

Then he looks up. And he lets out a breath.

"Totally cool," he says.

Piece of rich relevance

More than 1,100 items were up for bidding March 7 and 8 at the prestigious Hunt Auction, 30 miles west of Philadelphia. But it was the Hank Aaron letter, one of several pieces from the estate of Syd Pollack, that intrigued auction house owner David Hunt. "I'm a big fan of historically relevant pieces," he says. "What caused them to be created? What's the story?" He set the letter's value at $3,000-$4,000.

About 500 bidders were present, either in a hotel conference room or participating online. That's where Ray Doswell was, at his computer at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Doswell, the curator, always gets a heads-up when Hunt auctions black baseball artifacts -- and the Aaron letter, well, it was special.

"That letter -- that's where the light goes on for people," says Bob Kendrick, the museum's spokesman. "All of a sudden, these stories start to ring a little more true. They know what Hank accomplished and what Willie Mays accomplished. But that letter, it's a validation, a piece of our story."