McGwire’s 70th sells for $3 Million

Philip Ozersky ignored an offer to shake hands with Mark McGwire and take home some autographed paraphernalia in exchange for home run No. 70.

Smart move.

Then he turned down a $1 million offer for the baseball.

An even smarter move.

That’s because the ball wound up being sold to an anonymous phone bidder for a record $3 million at Guernsey’s Auction House.

The price included a bid of $2.7 million, plus a $305,000 buyer’s commission, making the total sale price $3,005,000.

Ozersky, a research scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, was flabbergasted by the price.

“I’m excited and overwhelmed,” he said.

Ozersky, who retrieved McGwire’s No. 70 when it landed under his seat in a private box at Busch Stadium last Sept. 27, said he never imagined that would happen.

“I was the person who least expected a ball to fly in there,” he said. “I never caught a baseball before. I went to see the Cards play and have some fun with friends.”

When he put the ball up for auction, Ozersky admitted he didn’t know what to expect.

“The sky’s the limit,” he said. “and I found out what the sky was.”

So did Irwin Sternberg, president of Stonehenge, Ltd., manufacturers of fine neckwear. When auctioneer JoAnne Carter reached $1.6 million, the bidding turned into a one-on-one showdown between Sternberg and the anonymous voice on the telephone, who described himself only as “one heck of a baseball fan.”

With bids jumping $100,000 at a time, Sternberg stayed in until $2.6 and then blinked.

“I’m a little sorry I didn’t go higher,” he said later. “I think the person on the line didn’t have a bottom line. If it went to $3 million, it would be $3.1 million.”

“I congratulate the owner, whoever that is. I hope whoever purchased it uses it well. It would be a loss to the country if it is locked away in a vault.”

Sternberg did not leave the auction empty-handed. He purchased a ball signed by Babe Ruth and Roger Maris, previous holders of the home run record, for $60,000 and said he would use it to raise funds for the Jimmy V. Foundation for cancer research, named for deceased college basketball coach Jim Valvano.

The McGwire ball was the centerpiece of the auction, and it took just 12 minutes for the sale to be completed. Other lots went for considerably less, including Sammy Sosa’s 66th home run, which went for $150,000, plus a $22,500 buyer’s commission.

Hank Aaron’s 755th career home run reached $800,000, but was withdrawn because that was below the minimum price set by Guernsey’s. Also withdrawn was Mickey Mantle’s 500th home run ball when questions of its authenticity came up.

Still, Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey’s, was thrilled with the results of the auction, which drew about 500 bidders to Madison Square Garden.

“Three million is an extraordinary accomplishment,” he said. “It’s 23 times the world record for any baseball ever sold, and five to six times the record of any sports artifact.”

The previous record price for a baseball was the $126,500 paid two months ago for the ball Babe Ruth hit for the first home run at Yankee Stadium. The McGwire bidding began at $400,000 and just kept going up from there.

When the final price was reached, the crowd cheered and Ettinger exulted, “As Mel Allen would say,” he said, “How about that?”

Ozersky, the research scientist who went to a ball game and became a millionaire, was thinking the same thing.

Associated Press