Final HR Ball To Be Sold

From USA Today:

The last home run hit at Yankee Stadium will be sold at an auction this weekend in New York after the man who snagged it decided he could use the money to pay off some debt and send his kids to college.

“We talked about it as a family and we said we can keep it locked up in a safe deposit box and when I die the kids can fight over it, or maybe it can go to a good collector with a massive Yankees collection, and we can take the money and do some good with it,” Steve Harshman, of Casper, said.

Harshman, a high school football coach and Republican state lawmaker, said he has heard estimates that the ball will fetch at least $200,000.

He said he wants to pay off a few debts, donate money to his church and charity and help pay for his children’s college educations.

Harshman snagged the ball hit by Yankees backup catcher Jose Molina on Sept. 21. He had traveled to the Bronx with his 11- and 9-year-old sons and his brother to fulfill a lifelong dream of his father, who died six years ago.

“The memory of it, that’s all we went for,” he said. “The memory of going to Yankee Stadium as a family. That’s the key thing.”

Auction house Guernsey’s will auction the ball on Saturday at Madison Square Garden along with other artifacts and memorabilia from the stadium, which is being replaced by a new stadium next year.

“There have been some things we’ve been excited about and the world didn’t share our excitement,” Arlan Ettinger, president of the auction house, said. “… Here, I think everybody agrees this item is of great significance. It’s not the cure for cancer, but in the world of baseball it’s a big deal. But what does that mean?”

Ettinger is optimistic the ball will be a hot item in a sale that will include the original blueprints for Yankee Stadium and the first World Series trophy to be publicly auctioned — the 1912 Boston Red Sox trophy.

Ettinger said it’s possible the person who holds the first home run ball at Yankee Stadium is eager to bookend his or her collection with the final home run ball.

That’s cool, I guess. Hopefully Mark Ecko won’t buy it, stamp an asterik on it and send it to the moon… What’s funny is, I bet Jose Molina never thought he’d hit a home run this season, let a lone one that would end up worthy of a $200,000 price tag.