The 50th home run ball that made the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani the only member of the 50/50 club has reached another milestone.
Bidding in the Goldin auction for the 391-foot blast that caused such a scrum at loanDepot Park in Miami that there are now two pending lawsuits over ownership of the ball, has now reached $1.83 million as of Thursday night, with 19 days remaining on the auction. That makes it the second most expensive home run ball of all time, surpassing Aaron Judge’s American League record 62nd home run ball, which sold in 2022. The record is currently held by Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball in 1998, which sold for $3.005 million. That ball, which at the time was the new Major League single-season home run record until Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001, was purchased by former Edmonton Oilers minority owner, Image Comics and McFarlane Toys founder, Todd McFarlane.
Like Bonds’ 73rd home run ball before it, the Ohtani ball has sparked a legal battle for ownership rights. A week after Ohtani hit his 50th home run of the season, 18-year-old Max Matus filed a lawsuit against Chris Belanski, who came out of the scrum with the ball and listed it with Goldin, claiming that Belanski assaulted him in order to gain control of the ball. On Tuesday, Joseph Davidov filed a suit against both Matus and Belanski, claiming that he had possession of the ball before either of them and only lost it when an unidentified fan jumped onto Davidov. The next hearing for Matus’ suit is scheduled for October 10.
On Saturday, Ohtani’s 40th home run ball — a walk-off grand slam against the Tamp Bay Rays on August 23 that put him in the 40/40 club — sold for $251,320.
The hype of Ohtani’s historic 50 home run and 50 stolen base season continues to drive interest in anything and everything connected to the night he reached the milestone. Ohtani’s game-worn pants and batting gloves from that game were acquired by Topps and will be cut into pieces and put into trading cards that are part of a special 50/50 commemorative set that sold out in a matter of hours.
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(Top photo: Chris Arjoon/Getty Images)
