When it comes to record-breaking home run balls hit throughout Major League Baseball history, few have amassed a collection quite like Todd McFarlane.
You likely recognize McFarlane’s name for one of three reasons.
If you collect comic books you know McFarlane is one of the most famous artists in the history of the genre, a co-founder of Image Comics and the creator of the anti-hero comic series “Spawn.” If you’re into toys you know he has one of the most popular lines of superhero and sports action figures with his company McFarlane Toys. But if you always have your eye on sports memorabilia then you know it was McFarlane who spent a still record $3 million on former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball in 1998 when McGwire broke Roger Maris’ then record of 61 home runs in a single season.
But McFarlane didn’t stop there. He’s also the owner of former Chicago Cub Sammy Sosa’s 66th home run ball from the 1998 season and the San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds’ 73rd home run in 2001, which is the current MLB home run record.
When record-breaking home runs are hit, McFarlane knows. So is the man who collects historic home run balls like Infinity Stones keeping an eye on Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball?
Of course he is. But only because that home run, which made Ohtani the only MLB player to ever hit 50 or more homers and steal 50 or more bases in the same season, hits a very specific criteria that must be there for McFarlane to consider purchasing it.
“I’ll tell you what my interests are in (baseballs) and the Ohtani 50/50 ball falls into that category,” McFarlane said. “It’s records that are done in a season, not in a career. Because a career, somebody can play 15 years and then somebody can play 22 years and beat you by one because they (played) seven more years. For me, the great thing about season records in any sport, is that everyone gets a reset. If you don’t break that record, everybody gets reset to zero the next season and you try it again.
“But there’s a start and a finish, which is a season,” McFarlane continued. “So Ohtani, doing what he did, 50/50, now the race is, can somebody do it again? I don’t know. Will Superman come along and do 60/60? Hard to imagine.”
Single season records are what matter to McFarlane and his at times itchy baseball bidding finger. That’s why when New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run in 2022, breaking Maris’ six-decade long American League record, McFarlane didn’t flinch. McFarlane received many inquiries about Judge’s record-breaking home run ball when it went up for auction (it eventually sold for $1.5 million at a Goldin auction), in part because he was the owner of so many record breaking home run balls, but his answer was always the same: not interested.
“I have the Major League record ball. I’m not looking for the American League record,” McFarlane said. “What Ohtani did was a Major League record and I think there’s a tremendous value, plus he’s sort of the hot topic in baseball. He’s the face of MLB. If you ask anybody who doesn’t like baseball, they know (Ohtani) and Aaron Judge pretty much.”
Bidding on Ohtani’s 50th home run ball currently sits at $2.196 million. Is McFarlane paying attention? Does he have another record-breaking $3 million dollar bid in him? Could he add another world-famous home run ball to his collection when the auction ends on October 22? It’s absolutely within the realm of possibility according to McFarlane.
“Yes. A slight possibility,” McFarlane said. “I’ll be sniffing around.”
But McFarlane’s primary connection to the sports world remains his McFarlane Toys sports action figures. Current waves of McFarlane Toys sports figures include players from the NFL, NHL (McFarlane is Canadian-born and a former minority owner of the Edmonton Oilers), MLB and UFC. McFarlane says choosing who gets a figure is as simple as a sports bar debate about who the best players in each league are. There might be some disagreements, he says, but generally most will agree on who the best players are in each sport. That’s how he selects players.
Does Travis Kelce dating Taylor Swift mean a bump in his figures sold?
“There was a spike in his popularity,” McFarlane said. “What it was for and what was driving that, it’s hard to determine. I think there’s a cocktail that’s probably pushing it up. One, he’s just a hell of a player. He’s an all-(pro). Two, his team wins Super Bowls. Anyone who’s playing on championship teams already gets a bigger spotlight. And then three you’ve got the pop culture component of it. On his own, on a losing team, not dating somebody super popular, and he’s not an all-(pro), do I sell as many? Of course not.”
Some current McFarlane sports figures for sale include Lamar Jackson, the Kelce brothers (both together in a single package and sold separately), Jordan Love, Patrick Mahomes, Ohtani, Elly De La Cruz, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Connor Bedard and Conor McGregor.
McFarlane Toys is dominated by superheroes (and the occasional Ted Lasso figure) thanks to a deal with Warner Bros. (who owns DC Comics). That means McFarlane Toys gets to make lots of Batman action figures, which are always top sellers. But every time Mahomes wins a Super Bowl, McFarlane says the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback can easily be right up there in sales alongside the Dark Knight.
“If I’ve got the right player at the right time then those (figures) are the equal of the top-tier superhero characters or movie characters that I do,” McFarlane said.
McFarlane Toys also has a new figure of former USC star and current Chicago Bears rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. McFarlane says if Williams becomes a star, the figure will sell well because Williams plays for the Chicago Bears, a storied NFL franchise. Williams could be a superstar on another team and it might not have the same impact in terms of action figure sales.
“If someone like Caleb Williams has a great year but he’s playing for the Carolina Panthers, it doesn’t resonate as much at retail as sort of the original big named teams that are out there,” said McFarlane. “There was a time when Vladimir Guerrero Sr. was the best player in baseball I believe. But he was playing for the Montreal Expos and I couldn’t sell him. Best player in baseball and I couldn’t sell him. So the uniform matters also.”
Could a Washington Commanders uniform matter in the near future if Jayden Daniels continues his successful play on the field?
“Will I be keeping an eye on him? Of course,” McFarlane said.
McFarlane is also keeping an eye on the WNBA, but says there is currently no deal that would allow him to make action figures of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. He has considered it while also considering where his toys are currently displayed at retail stores.
“I’m in the action figure business as a whole and the action figure aisle is in what they call the boys section,” McFarlane said. “I think that there’s sort of a market for (the WNBA), but…I’d have to be able to find another channel to maximize the sales of that.”
Like many collectibles companies, McFarlane Toys experienced a boom in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. McFarlane was always skeptical of the numbers and viewed them as a “false positive,” convinced sales numbers would change once a quarantined world could go back outside. He was right, but he says the new normal in the collecting world is stronger.
“The new floor is much higher than where it was prior to the pandemic. If you went to most people who do collectibles or business companies like Topps and Upper Deck and said what are you selling prior and what are you selling now, it’s elevated across the board because people sort of rekindled that collecting spirit during those four years,” McFarlane said. “They didn’t basically all walk away from it, they went, ‘Man, this is kind of cool. I’m going to stick with it.’”
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(Top photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for ReedPop)
