A man rents a storage bin off North Tryon Street but falls so far behind in payments that the contents - clothes, furniture, cardboard boxes - are hauled out and sold by an auctioneer.

In one of the boxes is a baseball book featuring Babe Ruth. Sports memorabilia usually sells quickly on eBay, so you buy the box for $5.

Like the other 30 bidders here, you're looking for a bargain but dreaming of a steal. Babe Ruth is a bargain. The steal, you hope, is what turns up in the bottom of the box - three loose-leaf notebooks that were once property of the Charlotte Hornets.

The notebooks feature an array of ticket information from the 1991-92 and 1993-94 seasons. Money derived from season-ticket sales, group ticket sales and VIP seating, for the season and for individual games, is neatly noted in two white notebooks and a larger black one. There also are letters to the team from fans clamoring for tickets.

Charlie bought the box, but Wayne is the eBay expert, and he quickly sells Babe Ruth for $20. For the Hornets notebooks, Wayne - who asks that I not use his last name - asks $10,000.

Charlie - who also asks that his name not be used - calls the Hornets to anonymously suggest that they check eBay item 1048075617. The Hornets call the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

On Monday, two detectives from the fraud unit visit Wayne.

"We have to do this to protect ourselves," says Sam Russo, the Hornets' executive vice president of business. "We have to find out where the merchandise came from. One of our employees was missing his International League Triple-A Charlotte Knights championship ring. Somebody had stolen it and was selling it on eBay."

When the detectives arrive, Wayne can't open the front door of his Charlotte apartment more than a foot because he has moved the sofa in front of it so he could put up his Christmas tree. It looks suspicious, Wayne's not opening the door all the way.

But Wayne is a sharp guy. A former engineer, he quit because he can make more money selling items from auctions. Wayne once bought a carburetor from a 1909 Model T Ford for $19.95 and sold it for $1,350. The detectives squeeze through the door, and Wayne shows them a notebook.

The detectives tell me that if the notebooks are obtained legally, Charlie and Wayne can sell them, and their investigation implies that no crime has been committed.

Charlie calls and invites me to Wayne's and we sit in his kitchen and examine the notebooks. I see many numbers. Russo says most are public information and the Hornets by now would have thrown them away. He won't speculate about how the notebooks ended up in a cardboard box.

Charlie and Wayne don't get their $10,000, so at 7:39 a.m. Thursday, they put the notebooks up for auction. Bidding ends at 7:39 a.m Sunday. The high bidder gets 1048075617.

Is this the motherlode for which the fellows hoped? No. But the notebooks do offer a major surprise:

We used to fill Charlotte Coliseum when the Hornets played.