Baseball: honest kids return yankee playoff tickets

if this story made the national sports i missed it completely, if it didn't shame on the media

Youngsters Return Yankees Playoff Tickets

SUMMIT, N.J. - Talk about temptation: $20,000 worth of box seat tickets for New York Yankees playoff games, just lying there on the street. Nine youngsters who came across the tickets turned them in.

"I am absolutely amazed by their honesty," said Fran Durst, a spokeswoman for Wachovia Bank, which owned the tickets. "What a temptation, just to take these tickets and go to the game. But they did the right thing."

Only four of 70 tickets in a package worth $20,000 that apparently fell off a delivery truck Monday are still missing, she said Friday.

Since the tickets _ some worth $2,600 each _ are for bank customers, the bank will treat the boys and their parents to a New Jersey Nets game Dec. 10 against New Orleans from its luxury box at the Continental Airlines Arena, Durst said.

Also among the rewards: the Yankees gave the boys tickets to Thursday night's dramatic 6-4 win over the Minnesota Twins that captured the American League East title.

"Bottom of the ninth, two-run shot to clinch the division, not a bad game," Detective Lt. Robert Weck said.

The boys were honored before the game at Summit City Hall. "We do have a lot of good kids out there, and that's why their actions should be commended," Weck said.
It started Monday afternoon, when seventh-graders Corey Platt and Chris Osmun, both 12, found some of the tickets as they walked home after school. They flagged down an officer.

Seven other boys found most of the other tickets down the street, told their parents and decided to turn them in, Weck said. Other tickets trickled in.

Corey's mother, Elizabeth Platt, said Friday she was proud of her son.

"I was very happy that they were rewarded, but I'm a little nervous ... that the next time he does something right and doesn't get this reaction, he might not do the right thing the third time," she said.

Word of the boys' actions reached Yankee principal owner George Steinbrenner.

"It's a real tribute to their honesty and total integrity," Steinbrenner said in a statement.

The boys will also be sent bags of Yankee memorabilia, Steinbrenner spokesman Howard Rubenstein said.