Cody Snavely
LOS ANGELES, CA — Before the Los Angeles Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani embarked on their World Series run, smashing through the San Diego Padres and New York Mets to go to the Fall Classic, Ohtani was smashing records of his own in his first year in Dodger Blue.
As we all know, Shohei Ohtani, the two-way, two-time American League Most Valuable Players Awad winner and four-time all-star, accomplished something that has never been done before in Major League Baseball history: hitting fifty home runs and stealing fifty bases.
In the final weeks of the 2024 Major League Baseball regular season, Ohtani was inching toward history. On the final day of the Dodgers’ seven-game road trip against the Miami Marlins, Ohtani would reach his goal.
The Dodgers won a lopsided affair, dropping twenty total runs largely due to Ohtani’s 6-for-6, 10-RBI day, which included three home runs, two doubles, and two stolen bases, pushing him to 50/51 on the year.
Ohtani would finish the season with fifty-four home runs and fifty-nine stolen bases and will likely be the first designated hitter to win an MVP award, but the real story from that night was the fan who caught the ball at Loan Depot Park.
Chris Belanski was the lucky fan who came out of a dogpile of fans with the home run ball and placed it on auction with Goldin Auctions. Goldin started the auction for the historic ball at five hundred thousand dollars with a $4.5 million buyout, which would have made it the most expensive ball ever placed on auction.
If sold at the total price, the ball would surpass the record for the most expensive baseball, previously set at $3.005 million for Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball in 1999. Auctioneers Goldin, who are handling the sale, describe the ball as a must-have for any memorabilia collector, highlighting its significance both domestically and internationally. The baseball, showing signs of wear with black scuff marks and surface abrasions, symbolizes Ohtani’s dominance in the sport and his global appeal.
The auction for the baseball that sealed the first 50-homer, 50-stolen base in MLB history ended Tuesday night at Goldin Auctions. The baseball’s listed price was $3.6 million. With a 22% buyer’s premium added, the full price tag came out to $4.392 million, making it the most expensive baseball sold in history.
However, the caveat to all this is that the ball cannot be officially sold until a few legal matters are settled after multiple fans have filed lawsuits stating that the ball was rightfully theirs.
18-year-old Marlins fan Max Matus filed a suit claiming that Belanski forcibly took the ball away from him and claimed to be the ball’s rightful owner. The teenager demanded that the auction be stopped until the legal matter was resolved.
Another lawsuit filed by Joseph Davidov claimed a fan wrongfully jumped over a railing and attacked him, causing the ball to come loose out of his hands.
Overall, there are three separate people who claim the ball was rightfully theirs. While it will take time to determine who is right, one thing we know for certain is that this was one expensive baseball.
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