Record-breaking Bonds ball nets $752,467
John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, September 15, 2007
(09-15) 18:58 PDT Mission Viejo, Orange County -- The winning bid on Saturday night for Giant slugger Barry Bonds' record-breaking 756th shot was $752,467, well above expectations, while the shot to tie Hank Aaron's career home run record sold for $186,750.
The prices included the required 20 percent buyer's premium, which were added to the final bid. There were a total of 11 bids on home run ball number 755, which Bonds hit in San Diego on Aug. 4, and 31 bids on the tie-breaker.
The final price for 755 was only slightly below the $200,000 many memorabilia experts expected.
But the big prize was the record-breaker, and bidders had their checkbooks out for the ball that Matt Murphy, a contract supervisor from New York, plucked out of the stands at AT&T Park on Aug. 7.
A slow start to the bidding, which began Aug. 28, had naysayers suggesting that Bonds' links to baseball's steroid scandal, as well as his less-than-sunny personality, would keep the price of the record-breaking ball down. But the bidding took off Saturday and the ball more than doubled in price, soaring above the $500,000 experts expected it to bring.
Bids for the ball had reached $301,625 by the 1 p.m. end of the initial phase of the online auction.
But in the world of big bucks, online auctions, that's little more than a starting point for the effort to squeeze every possible dollar out of the object up for bid.
Anyone who cast one of 16 bids in the first part of the auction was allowed to jump back in and boost the offer in the extended auction, which continued until 3 p.m.
But even that didn't mark the end. Under rules set by Sotheby's-SCP Auctions, the Mission Viejo auction house, the bidding continued after 3 p.m., going on until no one increased the offer for at least 30 minutes. Each time a new bid was made, that 30-minute countdown clock was reset.
The clock ran down to seven seconds at 4:20 p.m., when a bidder jumped in with an offer of $467, 918, $22,000 more than the previous high bid. At 6 p.m., there was about a minute left when a bid for $627,056 was recorded.
There was a lot less suspense for home run ball No. 755, which tied Aaron's record. There was only a single winning bid made after the 3 p.m. close, one of 11 offers.
The estimates for the record-breaking ball were well below the $1 million that Heritage Auction Galleries originally offered well before Bonds' record-shattering blast. But the company withdrew that offer in June, citing concerns about the safety of fans scrambling for the ball and the company's potential liability.
Many memorabilia dealers believe the really big price will be for Bonds' final home run. That ball will represent baseball's career home run record, which for Bonds is now at 762 and counting.
When it comes to sports records, however, there are never guarantees. When St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire shattered the single-season home run record by slamming 70 in 1998, cartoonist Todd McFarlane paid $3 million for the ball, figuring the record could stand as long as the one Roger Maris set in 1961.
Bad call. Three years later, Bonds hit 73 home runs, breaking the record and sending the value of McGwire's ball plummeting.
― Bee OK, Sunday, 16 September 2007 04:09 (sixteen years ago) link
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