BaseballMemorabilia

A-Rod's $100,000 Baseball

On February 4, 2010 an on-line auction was concluded for the baseball Alex Rodriguez hit to secure his 500th career home run. A-Rod was the youngest player to do so and only one of a total of 22 players to ever attain the distinction of hitting that many homers. The ball in question brought in $103,579.00. The only other Yankees to achieve the goal are two of the greatest, Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle.

The auction was conducted by SCP Auctions who stock their auctions with quality baseball memorabilia and cards. They are also responsible for the successful sale of Barry Bonds record breaking 756th home run ball for $752,467 in September of 2007. The company has over the years partnered with Sotheby's to sell some of the most important items in baseball history including the bat Babe Ruth used to hit the first home run in Yankee Stadium ($1.265 million) and the original contract for the sale of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees in 1919, as well as private collections of other sports superstars such as Ernie Banks, Honus Wagner, Casey Stengel and Pee Wee Reese.

The fan, supposedly a New York area college student, who originally caught the ball on August 4, 2007 had kept the ball in good shape and you could even see where A-Rod's bat connected with the ball. Also, MLB had in expectation of the important at bat pre-marked the ball "A 107" and then after the home run placed a hologram with a serial number on the ball. This insured that the anonymous Internet buyer is assured that they are receiving the real deal. There was some discussion by the New York Daily News that the ball was sold for much less than it might have garnered due to steroid use by baseball players. It also could just be the economy, still not a bad take for a fan just out for a day at the game.

Tags: A-Rod, alex rodriguez, AlexRodriguez, auction, baseball, baseball memorabilia, BaseballMemorabilia, home run ball, HomeRunBall, memorabilia, New York Yankees, NewYorkYankees, sports memorabilia, SportsMemorabilia

Buyer Up! Yankees Auction Off Stadium Memorabilia

by Paul Rogers (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Sports

Let's get this straight. First the New York Yankees build a taxpayer-supported new stadium which, after cost overruns, comes to a whopping $1.5 billion. Then they charge $2,500 a game for the best seats in the house (a price they cut in half when the tickets embarrassingly weren't selling). And now they've begun auctioning off artifacts of the old stadium at exorbitant prices to earn back the $11.5 million the team paid the city to be able to dismantle the publicly owned ballpark.

Now that we've got all that squared away, here's a sampling of the items that went on offer this week from Yankees' partner Steiner Sports. A pair of seats (pictured), made of royal blue plastic and dating from the old stadium's renovation in the mid-1970s, begins at $1,499. A 2x2-foot chunk of freeze-dried sod starts at $280. A square of outfield turf ten times that size costs $10,000 and up. Getting sticker shock? Compared with the original price of top-of-line season tickets this year--$202,500--it's a veritable bargain.

Tags: baseball memorabilia, BaseballMemorabilia, new york yankees, NewYorkYankees, Steiner Sports, SteinerSports, Yankee Stadium, YankeeStadium