MLB ALL-STAR GAME

July 8, 2001

Tim Brosnan

Don Mattingly

TIM BROSNAN: First of all, I just want to thank Don for coming today. Thank you all for coming, and really, tell you briefly about this program that we think has revolutionized what is otherwise kind of a tawdry business. Major League Baseball back in January instituted the MLB Authentication Program, and since that time we have ensured for our fans that the 15,000 items that they have purchased in the marketplace are, in fact, what they are represented to be: real pieces of baseball history, and that's what we intend to do is assure our fans that when they buy a piece of authentic merchandise, that what we say is authenticated is game-used or a part of Major League Baseball history. Since the time we instituted the program we have covered such events as Opening Day in Puerto Rico, Nomo versus Ichiro here at SAFECO, and as we are going to cover here, all three days, and produce game-used items from all three days. But ultimately, it comes down to cooperation from our partners in this program among them, Field of Dreams, Steiner Sports Marketing, Tri-Star Productions, Upper Deck, certainly the Arthur Andersen Company and people like Don Mattingly. We were just talking a little while, and he expressed to me he wished this were around when he were a player, because when we went out and talked to players, one of the things that was most appealing to them was the fact that we were ensuring to the public that they could not be misrepresented anymore. So without further adieu, I would like to introduce and thank Don Mattingly for being here. He is a six-time, All-Star, for those of us who grew up in New York, he was certainly one of the fan favorites known to us as the Hit Man, and in my opinion, he was Most Valuable Player of this celebrity softball game out there. Without further adieu, Don Mattingly. (Applause).

DON MATTINGLY: I'm just proud to be a part of the program, initial program, and to me, it's important because it protects the players and it protects the fans. Like we said, you know, when I played, I wasn't so much into the memorabilia shows. I tried not to do them. I didn't feel good about them, but I did do private signings and things like that where people could come in, going into a store, and purchase it. I look at it almost like art, when someone comes in to get a picture or something, they want to buy your signature and they pay whatever it is and that's great. This program, you have items and articles that people are going to pay, and some people collect it like art. It feels good to make sure that they are getting what they pay for, and it doesn't matter how much they are paying or what they want to pay for it. It is the fact that when they buy it, they can be assured that it is a real signature, to know -- I've seen a story and I don't even want to quote numbers, but it seems like over 60 percent of Joe DiMaggio's signatures are fake. And when you don't get a real signature, that's not right. And to me that's the best thing about the program, it protects the players, the fans and let's you know that you are getting a genuine product and it just feels good to be a part of that.

DON MATTINGLY: Sure. I've seen it before. You go on the Internet, the guy that helps me with my Web site he'll bring me pictures of whatever, and say, "Is this yours?" And I will say, "I don't think so." Sometimes you sign differently. You're walking through a crowd, people are bumping and you're on the move. But on a regular picture you're signing for somebody or doing 50 items or something, your signature is pretty much the same and you know they are not mine.

DON MATTINGLY: I let them know. And really, more than anything -- it really used to bother me. Same thing, I hate to see people get ripped off. I wasn't so much worried about getting ripped off myself, because I was doing great with baseball, getting paid plenty. I wasn't worried about a guy making 20 or 30 bucks on me; it didn't bother me. But it did bother me that people were getting stuff and paying for stuff that wasn't real. If it would happen to me, would I get a hold of Ray, my representative, and say that they are selling some stuff over here that's not real. We talked about it, back and forth, and there wasn't a whole lot that you could do about it. It was just kind of like, well, you tell a guy, he stops it, but two weeks later, he's doing it again. You know, it shows up somewhere else under a different name. It's just, there's nothing that you can do about it, and this program is the first thing that -- everything is documented, from the numbers on it, they can go to the Web site and check it out and find the number or find their item. If it doesn't match up, they don't have a real signature. It's just a unique program. We talked earlier, we feel like it's going to go through all the Leagues. We feel like everybody is going to be do doing it, authenticating the products that we are selling.

TIM BROSNAN: We are not authenticating secondary market items. We don't go into the marketplace and assure that something is authentic unless we saw it signed at the time and authenticated at the time. The kind of backbone of this program is the fact that if we authenticate something, it means that from the time it went on to the field of play until the time it came off the field to play and someone, in fact, put a tamper-proof hologram on it and it was registered on the Internet, that is the only stuff that gets authenticated. So in terms of signature, there's a witness from Arthur Andersen, someone who undertakes the authentication process, right then and there when Don Mattingly is signing something and if it has an authentication sticker on it; it means someone watched him do it, put a hologram on it, registered it on the Internet and certified it from then on out.

DON MATTINGLY: There isn't anything we can do about the secondary market, except to kind of take the trade that was operating on the wrong side of that secondary market, and hopefully, make the business less lucrative for them.

DON MATTINGLY: No. The fact is, they can get that. The fact is -- we hope, that the fan leaning over the dugout getting a signature, the thing that counts there is the fan knew that they got that signature. The ones we are trying to protect are the fans that are going into the secondary market and buying something with a signature on it from this day forward. We are trying to give them some assurance of quality, integrity, etc.