Shohei Ohtani’s latest piece of baseball history is on the auction block!
The Los Angeles Dodgers star’s home run ball — from last week’s game in which he became the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in the same season — is up for sale, perESPN and The Athletic.
Collectibles company Goldin is set to entice prospective buyers with an opening bid of $500,000 beginning on Friday, Sept. 27.
Ohtani became the founding member of the select club on Sept. 19 when he hit three home runs and stole two bases in a game against the Miami Marlins.
The fan who snapped up the ball — which landed in the stands after briefly bouncing into the bullpen — turned down the Dodgers’ offer of $300,000 for the piece of memorabilia, according to KTLA-TV.
Instead, the anonymous man turned the ball over to the auction house.
“This was one of the easiest [consignments] ever,” Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin, told ESPN. “Ohtani [hits 50] on Thursday, literally Friday we heard from the guy, he contacted Goldin on his own through social media, flew a security guard down to Miami on Monday with a representative from Goldin, met him, flew back Monday.”
Ohtani’s achievement is just his latest in an already historic season. The presumptive MLB 2024 National League MVP is batting .301, and has 123 RBIs and 53 home runs as of Wednesday, Sept. 25, per ESPN.
Already, the ball is likely to yield the fan more than he would have received from the Dodgers, a different outcome as opposed to another fan who caught a historic ball two seasons ago.
When Cory Youmans caught Aaron Judge’s record-breaking home run ball in October 2022, he turned down a private offer of $3 million for the ball, ESPN reported at the time.
The ball later sold at auction to a bidder for $1.5 million. But Youmans was more interested in making the transaction “transparent,” he said.
“Congratulations to Joe! Given the historical significance of #62, it was important to me that the selling process was fair, accessible and transparent,” Youmans said when the transcation occurred, adding that the seller “seems like a great man and the perfect steward for this special piece of MLB history.”
