In an episode of "Seinfeld," Jerry is nervous about having to take a lie
detector test. George tells Jerry how he's been able to lie his way through
many situations over the years by following one simple philosophy: "It's not
a lie if you believe it."

That must be the same philosophy used over the years by the on-air
personalities who are asked to sell sports cards on Shop At Home TV. Sometimes the things they say to sell cards are so ridiculous, you have to assume they truly believe it. Otherwise, nobody in their right mind could make these claims (at least not with a straight face).

I had not seen cards for sale on Shop At Home for several years, primarily because I avoid all home shopping networks. But last Saturday, I accidentally flipped past the Shop At Home channel and was stopped by the offer of the hour: a collection of cards and items depicting at least 50 Hall of Famers for $99.99 (plus another $10 or so for shipping).

I only watched this segment for about 10 minutes, but that's all it took to hear some remarkable claims. For instance, the headline item in this collection was an autographed Steve Carlton first-day cover. The hosts immediately proclaimed that this item alone was worth the $100 price for the whole collection.

Truth be told, an item like this is probably worth $25-$30.

The other big-ticket items in this lot included George Brett and Robin Yount rookie cards, both graded "10" by Beckett. That would be pretty cool if those were the Topps rookie cards of these Hall of Famers, but instead, the cards were from the far less popular (and unlicensed) SSPC set.

Again, the hosts proclaimed that these cards together were worth the $100 price tag. Again, they would be wrong because the book value for the cards is about $7 each.

Now, they were correct that the cards were graded 10 by Beckett, but this 10 was by Beckett's lower-priced Collectors Club Grading, and a BCCG 10 only means the card is "Mint or better." It doesn't carry the same premium as a 10 from the standard Beckett grading service.

They also promised cards of 50 "current or future Hall of Famers," which I don't doubt was accurate. Although most of the cards I saw pictured were mid-1990s cards of guys like Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, and few of the cards I saw would be considered premium cards.

Consumers who purchase items from TV shopping networks are generally being coaxed to make an impulse purchase. If they pay more than what they could find the same items for elsewhere, well, that's their own fault. In this case, I'm not sure consumers would have been getting "ripped off" in terms of what they were paying, but by no means were they getting several hundred dollars worth of items as the hosts were suggesting.

Five separate Michael Vick cards from the recently released Topps Chrome Football set have sold on eBay in the past week. That's noteworthy because Topps had announced in early August that it was removing all of Vick’s cards from the remainder of its 2007 product line, and Topps Chrome was the first product scheduled to be affected by that decision.

Three base cards from the set (No. 111) sold for $405, $350 and $290, respectively in the last week of September. A Refractor version sold for $365 and a rarer Blue Refractor version sold for $500. Another base card from the set is for sale in an auction that ends Thursday.

Topps public relations manager Clay Luraschi said the company does not know how many Vick cards had made it into the product or how they ended up in packs. “This was obviously done unintentionally,” he said. “We are currently looking into the manufacturing process of this product to determine what may have happened.”

The ball Barry Bonds hit for his 756th home run will be displayed in the Hall of Fame, but it will not look exactly the same as it did when it first landed in the seats at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

Marc Ecko, who bought the ball in an online auction, set up a website for fans to vote on one of three options for the ball’s fate. The winning choice: brand the ball with an asterisk and send it to Cooperstown.

How the ball will be marked and when it will be displayed have yet to be decided. Hall of Fame president Dale Petroskey said the museum is grateful to have the ball for display, even if it will be in an altered state. “This ball wouldn’t be coming to Cooperstown if Marc hadn’t bought it and then let the fans have their say,” Petroskey told The Associated Press. “We’re delighted to have the ball. It’s a historic piece of baseball history.”

Reportedly, 10 million votes were cast on the site, which gave Ecko plenty of name recognition beyond those who might have known him as a fasion designer. For his sake, I hope it was worth the $752,000 he spent on the ball.