The Only One Known: A Memoir of a Michael Jordan Ticket and the Auction That Failed It

THE ONLY ONE KNOWN: A Memoir of a Michael Jordan Ticket and the Auction That Failed ItAt 3:11 a.m. on April 1st, 2025, David J. Blixt was searching for a childhood baseball card to make his elderly mother smile. What he found instead, tucked into the crease of a 1984 game program beneath a bedroom dresser, was a full pristine ticket from Michael Jordan's first Chicago-area appearance. A $5 pass to East Chicago Washington High School Gym. With Michael Jordan's name printed right on it. The first and only known surviving example in existence.What followed was eight months that changed everything and nothing at the same time.The Only One Known is a memoir that lives at the intersection of sports history, market psychology, and the quiet dignity of caring for an aging parent. It is the story of a Pop 1 artifact authenticated by PSA, celebrated by a Bulls championship legend, connected to Junior Bridgeman's family, featured on CBS Chicago and the front page of the regional newspaper, and then consigned to a major national auction house with documented promises of whale bidder battles and six figure potential.It sold for $7,647.This is the story of an auction that failed a miracle and the documented account of exactly how and why it happened.Drawing on preserved emails, recorded conversations, published articles, and an independent AI analysis, David identifies four specific decisions made before the first bid was placed that together created a psychological ceiling no amount of bidding momentum could overcome. He calls them the Four Anchors. They are documented. They are sequential. And they are a cautionary tale that every consignor in every category deserves to read before they trust a once in a lifetime discovery to someone else's hands.But this is not only a market story.It is the story of a mother whose offhand suggestion about silver quarters sent her son searching through 40 years of forgotten boxes. Whose handwriting on a VHS tape spine preserved proof of a 1997 NBC broadcast nobody else remembered. Who looked at a $5 ticket bearing the names of two future billionaires and said simply — you should write a book about this.It is the story of a Harbor Boy from East Chicago who sat in those bleachers at 13 years old and watched Michael Jordan take flight for the first time in a Chicago area gymnasium, in front of Chicago area fans, in a building his mother had graduated from, before the world knew what Air really meant.It is the story of what happens when a spiritual ledger and a professional ledger speak entirely different languages and the miracle gets lost in translation.Part sports history. Part grief memoir. Part market exposé. Part love letter to a mother who understood the whole thing better than anyone from day one.This is a book about Michael Jordan the way The Last Dance was a book about basketball. The artifact is the entry point. What waits inside is the story of memory, family, trust, and what happens when the market tries to put a price on something that was never really for sale.10% of proceeds benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Shriners Hospitals for Children, and St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church. Read more