Wilt’s 100-Point Ball Put Up for Auction

In 1962, 14-year-old Kerry Ryman sneaked onto the floor just after Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game with one thing on his mind: “How can I get that ball?”

Amid all the excitement, gaining possession wasn’t hard for the lanky teenager. He easily weaved through the players and fans, stole the ball and made a fast break, outrunning a security guard.

Thirty-eight years later, Ryman is putting the basketball up for auction.

“It has been a burden in some ways,” Ryman, now 52, said from his home in Annville, near Hershey, site of the famous game. “Every anniversary of Wilt’s death and every anniversary of the game, people call wanting pictures and interviews. I’m tired of it. I want to put it to rest.”

On Thursday, bidding on the ball will start at $25,000 at Leland’s auction house in New York.

Chamberlain, who died in October at 63, scored 100 points playing for the Philadelphia Warriors against the New York Knicks.

Collectors and fans are irritated that Wilt’s ball was never lent to a museum to be displayed for Chamberlain fans. They say the ball should have been put on a podium, encased in glass. Instead, it has been in a plastic bag in the corner of a closet. Ryman and his friends even played basketball with it for several years.

“This was a time when kids were buying bubble gum and pinning Babe Ruth’s card onto the spokes of their bicycle to make a popping noise,” Ryman said. “We wanted the ball so we could play with it. We didn’t know the value. Since then, it has sat in my closet.”

Sports memorabilia collectors are horrified that the ball remained in Ryman’s possession, especially since he admitted stealing it.

But police had a chance to reclaim it.

Gabe Basti, who was working as an arena security officer that night, said: “I chased the kid over a fence and through the park but never caught up with him. But we knew it was Kerry, and we knew where he lived. We could have gone to his house and gotten the ball back. But [Chamberlain] didn’t want it. He said, ‘Let the kid have it.’ ”

In any case, the statute of limitations for theft ran out in 1975.