TROPHY HUNTERS

A GROUP OF CHILDHOOD FRIENDS PULLED OFF A STRING OF THE MOST AUDACIOUS SPORTS-MEMORABILIA HEISTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. THEN THEY DID SOMETHING REALLY CRAZY.

- ARIEL SABAR

On a Wednesday morning in October 2014, in a garage in the woods of Pennsylvania, Tommy Trotta tried on some new jewelry: a set of rings belonging to the baseball great Yogi Berra. Each hunk of gold bore a half-carat diamond and the words NEW YORK YANKEES WORLD CHAMPIONS. The team had given them to Berra for each of his 10 World Series victories-no player had ever won more.

Trotta, a balding 39-year-old who lived with his wife and two kids in Scranton, had grown up a Yankees fan. He'd dreamed as a boy of one day joining the team. Berra had been the favorite player of his beloved godmother, who gave Trotta his first Yankees uniform when he was a toddler and took him to games at Yankee Stadium.

Trotta never competed past Little League. But there was more than one way into a hall of fame. In a methodically planned heist in the dark and rain of that October morning, he'd climbed onto a balcony at the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center, in Little Falls, New Jersey, carrying a duffel bag of tools and dressed entirely in black. He'd cut through a double-reinforced window built to withstand foul balls from an adjoining stadium. Then he'd used a 20-volt DeWalt grinder, with a fire-rescue blade, to slice open a bulletproof display case labeled BASEBALL'S RING LEADER.

Berra's rings now glinted on Trotta's hands. They evoked for him a magnificent time before his own birth: the mid-century years when Berra had won World Series after World Series with teammates such as Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, and Mickey Mantle. How many men besides Berra-and now Trotta-would ever know the feeling of those rings on their fingers? How many besides Trotta could sense the weight of all those victories, then destroy every last ounce of it for cash?