I’m not a Yankme’s fan, but this story is just flat out cool. Congratulations to Derek Jeter on his 3000th hit and to Christian Lopez for being a class act.

As a 23-year-old cell phone salesman, Christian Lopez had thousands of reasons to hold out for the highest bidder on the baseball from Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit. In fact, some estimates put the ball’s worth at $250,000, money that the recent graduate from St. Lawrence University could have certainly used.

And yet when New York Yankees officials found Lopez after he corralled Jeter’s historic home run, the only thing that the big Yankees fan wanted was to return the ball to the man who had hit it.

Yes, Lopez was willing to just give away what seemed like a sure lottery ticket

“No, not really,” Lopez said when Yankees announcer Michael Kay later asked him if he asked for anything in return. “He deserves this, he’s worked hard for this … I’m not the type of person to take this away from him.”

Read the whole heartwarming story.