Sports

IN AN ANONYMOUS office complex amid the Meadowland sprawl of northern New Jersey, Rick Probstein tears through a standing vault in search of his most prized treasure.

With wire-rim glasses and incandescent red hair, Probstein oversees his dimly lit five-room unit like Richard Branson on “MTV Cribs.” He’s earned it. EBay’s preeminent sports memorabilia proprietor reportedly racked up $50 million in global sales last year.

It’s a month before the coronavirus will upend civilization, and Probstein is in a collector’s paradise: One room spills over with racks of signed jerseys being prepped for shipping; in another, two dozen employees, sardined at workstations, painstakingly monitor auctions; in Probstein’s office, columns of cards on folding tables test gravity with mini helmets littering his desk. Atop the vault sits a Babe Ruth autographed baseball, acknowledged with a halfhearted nod as Probstein rummages below.

Probstein retrieves from the vault plywood-thick cards, autographed and embedded with game-used jersey swatches — one of them, a LeBron-Jordan dual patch autograph, will soon fetch $35,000 — and two graded 1952 Topps Mickey Mantles.

The Mantles are the showstoppers. In 2018, one went for almost $3 million at auction. Two could buy a private island.

After electing to bowl in Abu Dhabi, DC kept SRH openers – Warner and Jonny Bairstow – in check, bowling some tight lines, and the approach almost gave them their first wicket in the fifth over after Bairstow was hit onto the pads. While DC opted for a review, Bairstow as the on-field decision of not-out stayed. (Source: IPL)