Extremely rich man accepts six-figure gift from impoverished admirer

All Gotham rises as one to salute feudal cap-doffing.

Derek Jeter has, um, “earned” $205,430,000 (and counting).

Christian Lopez makes slightly less as a cellphone salesman and apparently owes $200,000 in non-dischargeable student debt.

A quick scan of the interwebs indicates almost universal acclaim for the “integrity” Lopez displayed in not selling the ball to the highest bidder.

Has the world gone mad? How does Derek Jeter sleep at night after accepting a gift worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from a worshipful young man with no money and enormous debts? (Let me guess: On top of enormous piles of cash surrounded by naked supermodels).

An unsentimental legal note: Technically Mr. Lopez should owe gift tax was using up part of his five-million dollar estate and gift tax exemption (when he caught the ball it became his property. By giving it to Jeter he was making a gift, whose value above the $13,000 per person annual exception is considered taxable income to him).

Of course all these goings-on are based on the willing suspension of disbelief without which professional sports could not exist, or at least could not be nearly as profitable as they are. It requires believing that Derek Jeter is something other than a very rich employee of even richer employers, who together are dedicated to separating Christian Lopez and Co. from as much of their scarce discretionary income as possible. And that’s fine — I’m a sports fan and I suspend disbelief happily and willingly all the time.

But if I had caught that ball I would have been on the phone to Sotheby’s before Jeter had gotten to second base.