Shohei Ohtani made baseball history last week when he became the first player to ever hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a single season. And for one fan in Miami, it meant potentially a massive pay day to part with the historic baseball.
Well, that fan has made his decision, and the Dodgers likely won’t be happy about it.
According to ESPN, the fan has opted to cosign the 50-50 ball to collectibles marketplace Goldin with an auction slated to begin on Friday. The starting bid is already set at $500,000 with the option to purchase the ball outright at $4.5 million.
The fan reached out to Goldin the day after catching the ball to start the consignment process, via ESPN:
“This was one of the easiest [consignments] ever,” Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin, told ESPN. “Ohtani [hits 50] on Thursday, literally Friday we heard from the guy, he contacted Goldin on his own through social media, flew a security guard down to Miami on Monday with a representative from Goldin, met him, flew back Monday.”
The Dodgers did reportedly offer the fan $300,000 for the baseball, which he turned down. At auction, the baseball could potentially go for millions and could eclipse that $1.5 million that Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run ball sold for.
We’ll have to see what happens on Friday.
