Albert Pujols’ 700th home run ball up for auction with monster price tag

The lucky fan who caught Albert Pujols’ historic 700th home run ball is about to cash in after putting it up for auction

What is a baseball worth?

Major League Baseball goes through around 300,000 of them every season. They vary slightly from one to another, but each is essentially the same: nine inches in circumference, a cork center covered in yarn and enclosed in layers of cowhide by exactly 108 stitches.

But not all baseballs are equal. Some of them become so intrinsically linked to the game’s history that their value skyrockets. So how much is one really worth? Los Angeles Dodgers fan Marlowe Leal hopes a lot.

Leal was sitting in the left-field bleachers at Dodger Stadium on the night of Sept. 23, when Albert Pujols launched his 700th career home off the Dodgers’ Phil Bickford. Pujols became only the fourth player to reach that historic milestone. Leal was the lucky fan who caught the ball, had it authenticated by MLB, and quickly exited the stadium, his lottery ticket in hand.

Leal consigned the ball to Goldin Auctions, who includes it in their October Monthly Sports Auction along with such items as a ticket stub from Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, a game-used LeBron James jersey, and a Michael Jordan rookie card. The current top bid is $130,000, with bidding open until Nov. 5.

Not all historic balls end up on the auction block. New York college student Michael Kessler caught Aaron Judge’s 60th home run ball, then returned it to the Yankees slugger in exchange for a photo and a signed bat. Pujols never saw his milestone ball after it left his bat, but he didn’t begrudge the lucky fan from looking to cash in.

“Souvenirs are for the fans. I don’t have any problem if they want to keep it. If they want to give it back, that’s great. But at the end of the day, I don’t focus on material stuff,” Pujols told Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register following the game.

Albert Pujols home run ball is in some historic company

The record for a ball remains the $3,000,000 that comic book artist Todd McFarlane paid for Mark McGwire’s 70th home run in 1998; fan Phil Ozersky just wanted to meet McGwire in the Cardinals clubhouse at the end of the game, but McGwire declined and Ozersky ended up with a small fortune because of it. Barry Bonds’ 700th home run ball sold for $804,000 in 2004. Lenny Beals was just 17 when he retrieved Babe Ruth’s 700th home run in 1934 and returned it to the Bambino for $20, which he kept until his death in 1977.

Sal Durante, the Brooklyn teen who caught Roger Maris’ 61st home run ball in 1961, sold it for $5,000. At least the fate of those balls is well-chronicled. Others have simply disappeared. Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer to win the 1960 World Series was caught by Pittsburgh teen Andy Jerpe, who later lost it in a field of weeds while playing with friends. The ball hit by Kirk Gibson in the 1988 World Series has never been identified.

Those balls would be worth a princely sum if ever retrieved, as is the Pujols ball. Leal found himself in the right place, at the right time, and is going to be significantly richer because of it.