Collecting Game-used: The Rock, The Chiefs & The N.Y. Times?

If you're a regular reader here, then you know that Ballers has had a place in this Collecting Game-used series and other event-used pieces shown off here a few times over.

Why? A unique auction in the past saw a lot of props from the HBO series hit the open market via Heritage Auctions and Screenbid a few years ago and then remaining props and other pieces went off to a company that burns off props from all kinds of production companies over time for this and many other shows.

This one this month? Well, it's right there in the wheelhouse of all that -- a holiday pick-up of mine when the current company selling it all off actually offered discounts on items and I finally grabbed a piece that's fun, unique and has a tie to the big game this Sunday. If you know the show, then you know the tie-in.

If not, keep reading to see the details this time.

THE BASICS ...
Screen-prepared prop: Spencer Strasmore on the cover of The New York Times
Watch it in action: Ballers' Series finale -- Season 5, Episode 8 "Players Only" (21:14)

What's Buzz-worthy: This series had a bit of an abrupt ending but still ended with a pivotal point where the former player turned Kansas City Chiefs owner Spencer Strasmore (Dwayne Johnson) went to the media -- reporter Maileen Matthews is named in a scene for an interview and seen on the byline here -- and had a Times cover story exposing some of the NFL's dirty laundry as he faced threats against him as he pushed to get their players lifetime health care benefits on the day of an owners meeting and vote. In a pivotal scene in the finale, the Dallas Cowboys owner (played by actor Christopher McDonald ... Shooter McGavin!) is on his jet reading a copy of the newspaper with this story and then folds it as he leaves the plane. A few more copies are seen among the tables of owners waiting in an airport hanger before a Strasmore monolog and vote where, indeed, they did the right thing for the players and to avoid a strike that Strasmore had backed. (HBO hasn't put the episode anywhere online or I'd embed it all here for you to see ... but the episode time is noted above and some screenshots are below.) Now, of course, this isn't the actual copy McDonald used -- well, it could be but there's no way to prove that -- and the company selling the props now has multiple copies available (I own three since they were dramatically discounted) But, they're definitely legit off-the-press copies with a printed front and back page wrapped around a section of the Los Angeles Times -- that's probably where they were printed for the production company. How many were made? Probably not a ton but probably a bundle or two as presses will run for a bit before being done. Newpapers aren't the easiest things to collect and store with their size and the paper but for this cool piece -- less than the price of a blaster box of cards -- I'll try. It'd be a fun autographed item, too, though newsprint also isn't that friendly there. Sure, it's not game-used ... but it's a piece of Ballers history.

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>> See all past Collecting Game-used stories from Buzz here

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