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'Strong six-figure ball'

Fan decides to sell McGwire's 500th home run ball

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Posted: Thursday September 09, 1999 06:55 PM

Mark McGwire's 500th home run ball will be auctioned off along side Mickey Mantle's 500th home run ball. AP

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- As if hitting 70 home runs in a single season -- and following it up by hitting his 500th in the next -- wasn't enough, Mark McGwire is now headlining with "The Mick."

Jim Shearer, the 28-year-old architect who caught McGwire's 500th home run ball, has decided to sell it at auction. It will come up to the block alongside Mickey Mantle's 500th home run ball at a sale Oct. 30 in Las Vegas.

"We talked to a lot of people," Shearer said Thursday. "We talked a lot to my wife's family and my family. The more we talked about it, we started to feel better about selling it."

McGwire's ball, along with Mantle's, is the highlight of the auction, arranged by Michael Barnes, president of One-of-a-Kind Auctions in Festus, Mo. Last season, Barnes helped Phil Ozersky, a 26-year-old researcher at Washington University, sell McGwire's 70th home run ball. Canadian comic book tycoon Todd McFarlane paid more than $3 million for it.

"Right now, the market is strongly weighted for current players: McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Ken Griffey Jr.," Barnes said. "At this sale, what you have is the power hitter of the past, and the power hitter of today."

Before this season began, Barnes offered $100,000 to whoever caught McGwire's 500th. The $100,000, however, was just an advance on what the ball might bring at an auction. Eddie Murray's 500th home run ball sold for $500,000, and Barnes said he thinks both McGwire's and Mantle's ball could fetch that kind of price.

"We've been making sure that we're sure it will sell for more than $100,000," Barnes said. "We feel it's a very strong six-figure ball."

There are no definite plans for what Shearer and his wife Jennifer will do with the money, although Jim mentioned his student loan debt. And after paying his alma maters back, he's ready to give them some more.

"I'd be disappointed if I don't get enough to share with the high school and colleges that we went to," Shearer said. Donations to other charities are in their plans as well.

The ball has been resting safely in a safe deposit box since McGwire hit it Aug. 5. Shearer hasn't made any trips to the bank "just to look at it," but said he's shown it off quite a bit.

"You sit there and look at it, and it's just a baseball," he said. "But then, you remember sitting in the stands and watching it sail toward your seat, and it gets kind of exciting."

After hitting his 500th home run, McGwire said the bat he used to hit it would be donated to the hall of fame, and he'd like to see the ball join it.

"I'm a true believer that anything that's historical, or that anytime somebody reaches a milestone, that it belongs in the hall of fame," McGwire said.

Sixteen players have hit 500 homers. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum has four of the 500th home run balls. Shearer said he has been in contact with the hall, and hopes to reach an arrangement to display the ball there until the auction.

Barnes said several of the underbidders for No. 70 have inquired about No. 500, but declined to name them, or say if McFarlane has expressed an interest.

"Our hope is that someone we've never dealt with comes out of nowhere and really surprises us," Barnes said.

 

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