Shutting The Door
It appears Jonathan Papelbon knows almost as much about closing deals as he does about closing baseball games.
The former Red Sox closer’s Beacon Street home in Boston is up for sale for the highly competitive price of $3.1 million.
The Teller thinks it’s priced for a quick sale. On the Back Bay end of Beacon Street, the place is in a better neighborhood than Manny Ramirez’s famously difficult-to-sell penthouse in the downtown Ritz-Carlton.
And while Manny’s may have been bigger and more modern, as a seller, "Manny being Manny" wasn’t necessarily a good thing. His old place hit the market at $8.5 million in 2009. He paid $5.8 million for it in 2001. Maybe he got his numbers backward when it came time to sell, and apparently he wasn’t up on the latest news from the housing market when he left Boston.
Papelbon, on the other hand, has put his old place right in the Back Bay wheelhouse. Sure it’s $1,240 per square foot, but it’s a beautiful place with great views and a hot tub on the roof – accessible by elevator.
TopTenRealEstateDeals.com puts Papelbon’s place at No. 4 among homes being sold by Major League Baseball stars and former stars.
Maybe it’s just The Teller’s Boston bias, but Papelbon’s place is the classiest of the crop.
For comparison’s sake, check out erstwhile Red Sox Third Baseman Adrian Beltre’s California clusterfrolic. Or don a pair of sunglasses for a peek at the new money orgasm that is the Orlando pad of Hall of Fame Shortstop Barry Larkin. With a few tweaks, the place might be classy enough for a Rick Ross video shoot.
Larkin’s $10.9 million palace outside Orlando has a "disco lounge" and a "stage room" The Teller could certainly make good use of. It certainly seems more upbeat than the giant crucifix hanging in retired hurler John Smolz‘s faux hunting lodge in Georgia.
Papelbon’s home – along with the Seattle home being sold by 137-year-old pitcher Jaime Moyer (only a slight exaggeration) and Nomar Garciaparra’s (we all remember him, right?) Spanish-style California bungalow (only $595,000!) – seems like a real, livable place. And it’s not in some godforsaken, redneck, no-man’s land like "outside Orlando" or Milton, Ga.
If The Teller’s drawer doesn’t balance a few times this month, you’ll know what we’re saving for.
