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While Major League Baseball is putting some finishing touches on getting into the NFT game, here’s a player minting his own. This is the first NFT distributed by a big league player and the proceeds will go to a very good cause. Bidding closes in less than 24 hours. https://t.co/u7JwcUDUbP Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 18, 2021 With the COVID-19 pandemic significantly limiting revenue opportunities, the timing for sports organizations and athletes to dive into the cryptocurrency and NFT world made sense. Former University of Arizona tight end Rob Gronkowski, now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, took advantage of the craze early. He partnered with Medium Rare for an NFT card collection that sold out and brought in an estimated $1.8 million, Cointelegraph reported. The collection included five tokenized cards featuring in-game action shots of Gronkowski during championship-winning games.
May 7, 2021
Former University of Arizona tight end Rob Gronkowski, now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, partnered with Medium Rare for an NFT card collection. (Photo courtesy gronknft.com)
After pitcher Taijuan Walker left the Arizona Diamondbacks, he became the first known and active Major League Baseball player to create and sell a piece of digital art through a non-fungible token, otherwise known as an NFT. Walker now plays for the New York Mets. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)
PHOENIX – Sports is a billion dollar industry, with revenue streams ranging from television rights to ticket sales. Add cryptocurrency and NFTs to the mix, and this latest gold rush has leagues, teams and players taking advantage of opportunities in an unlikely territory.
The Amazin' Mets, winners of the 1969 World Series, and are old men now, burdened by age, infirmity and COVID-19. Yet they will always be teammates, together.
Friendship, memories and a year with the 1969 New York Mets
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Former Mets OF Art Shamsky relives the 1969 championship season (6:11)
After a year of coping with the pandemic and the death of Tom Seaver, former Mets OF Art Shamsky shares with Jeremy Schaap his reflections on loss, forever friendships and the allure of 69. (6:11)
ON A 68-DEGREE Saturday in late October, Art Shamsky left his apartment to see a friend. He grabbed a baseball and an old glove, and took the subway to a deserted train car on the Long Island Rail Road. New York was still skittish, and Shamsky had been too. He d never been so vulnerable in his life. But he wasn t thinking about the pandemic, or himself. One thought kept floating through his head: What if he doesn t recognize me?
A Battle Creek Snowstorm is My Favorite Opening Day Memory
Opening Day sneaks up on your when you get older. I lived and breathed this stuff when I was a kid. Opening Day couldn t get here soon enough, but with everything else tugging at us these days - oh, it s Opening Day. That s nice.
I will say I like it better mid-week, than this routine MLB has gotten into starting the season on Sunday night on ESPN. There is no more traditional sport than baseball and the first game, the first pitch, should be in the afternoon, preferably in Cincinnati, where the season always began. (Because they re the oldest franchise, 1869, but MLB doesn t bow to its traditions as much as it used to, much to the chagrin of Bob Costas and me.)