Mark McGwire 70th Home Run Ball (1998)

Number 70, on the first pitch

The single-season home run record had belonged to Roger Maris since 1961, when he hit 61. In the summer of 1998 three sluggers chased it: Ken Griffey Jr., Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals. McGwire broke it first, on September 8, hitting a pitch from the Cubs' Steve Trachsel over the left-field wall for number 62, with Sosa on the field to congratulate him and members of Maris's family in the stands.

Sosa kept pace. On September 25 he hit his 66th, and for about 45 minutes he alone held the record. McGwire answered with five home runs in his last three games. On Sunday, September 27, the final day of the season, he homered off Montreal's Mike Thurman in the third inning for number 69.

In the seventh inning, with the score tied 3-3, two runners on and two out, Carl Pavano threw McGwire a first-pitch fastball. McGwire lined it down the left-field line for a three-run home run, his 70th of the year and his last at-bat of the season. The Cardinals won 6-3 in front of 46,110 fans. McGwire finished the day 3 for 3 with a walk and four runs batted in.

Big Mac

McGwire grew up in the Los Angeles area, the son of a dentist, and played first base at the University of Southern California. He batted .359 for the 1984 U.S. national team and played in the Los Angeles Olympics that summer, where the Americans won silver. The Oakland Athletics took him 10th overall, and as one half of the 'Bash Brothers' with Jose Canseco he won a World Series in 1989.

Oakland traded him to St. Louis on July 31, 1997. In 1998, his first full season as a Cardinal, he hit 70 home runs with 147 runs batted in, a .299 average, a .470 on-base percentage and a .752 slugging percentage. Sosa finished with 66 and Griffey with 56. McGwire's 245 home runs from 1996 to 1999 remain the most in any four-season span.

He retired on November 11, 2001, with 583 home runs. In 2010 he publicly admitted using performance-enhancing drugs during much of his career. His Hall of Fame support peaked at 23.7 percent of the vote and he dropped off the ballot after 2016. A stretch of Interstate 70 near Busch Stadium that had been named for him was renamed in 2010.

The summer baseball came back

The record chase arrived four years after a players' strike had wiped out part of the 1994 season and that year's World Series. The back-and-forth between McGwire and Sosa was front-page news, and it brought fans back to the game in large numbers.

It also turned the outfield seats into a scramble. A ball that broke or extended the record could be traded for a handshake and signed gear, given to the Hall of Fame or sold. The 62nd went the generous route: Tim Forneris, a member of the Cardinals' grounds crew, handed it back and received a trip to Disney World and a minivan.

By the end of the year the market had noticed. In November 1998, the ball Babe Ruth hit for the first home run at Yankee Stadium sold for $126,500, then the record for a sports collectible. Two months later the McGwire ball would beat it by more than twentyfold.

Under the bleachers, then under the gavel

Philip Ozersky, then a 26-year-old genetic researcher at Washington University in St. Louis, was at an office party in a party box called the 'Batting Cage' in the left-field stands. The ball bounced off the back wall and rolled under the metal bleachers where his co-workers were sitting, and he came up with it.

The Cardinals took him to a meeting room and tried to persuade him to give the ball to McGwire. Ozersky asked to meet McGwire first; the club's representative said he would have to give up the ball before that could happen. 'They were like, The Cardinals and McGwire don't negotiate,' Ozersky said later. 'If I had met McGwire, I might have gone duhhh and given him the ball.' He decided to sell.

The ball was displayed at the Cardinals Hall of Fame from October 5 to November 30, 1998, then flown to New York on December 7 for a press conference. Before the sale it was marked with an invisible ink containing synthetic DNA that glows green under a laser of the right frequency, an anti-counterfeiting method an authentication company had introduced that August.

On January 12, 1999, about 300 people packed an auction at Madison Square Garden; 85 bidders held paddles and 10 more bid by phone. The ball had been expected to bring about $1 million. Bidding opened at $400,000 and ran for about 10 minutes. Necktie maker Irwin Sternberg stayed in until $2.6 million. The winning phone bid was $2.7 million, and with a $305,000 commission the total was $3,005,000. Minutes later the same phone bidder bought Sosa's 66th home run ball for $150,000. Ozersky later recalled taking home $2.7 million after a $300,000 commission.

The anonymous buyer, through a spokesperson, said only: 'Tell them I'm a heck of a baseball fan.'

The psycho fan

The buyer was Todd McFarlane, the Calgary-born comic artist who had drawn The Amazing Spider-Man, co-founded Image Comics and created Spawn, whose first issue in 1992 sold 1.7 million copies. He had once hoped to play college baseball, and he was a part-owner of the Edmonton Oilers. On the phone that day he had written himself a note: do not spend more than $2.1 million. After he won, he said, 'I just made the biggest plunge of my business career.'

He confirmed the purchase in February 1999, calling himself a 'psycho fan' and a 'sports geek,' and held a press conference at the Plaza Hotel on February 8. In all he bought nine 1998 home run balls: McGwire's 1st, 63rd, 67th, 68th, 69th and 70th and Sosa's 33rd, 61st and 66th, for $3,609,800 including premiums. 'I blew my life savings on this,' he said, and called the purchase a bet that the record would not fall soon.

The 'McFarlane Collection' went on tour starting June 4, 1999, at Dodger Stadium, behind photoelectric alarm beams and two armed guards, with proceeds going to the ALS Foundation.

The bet lost two years later. Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001. McFarlane bought Bonds's 73rd ball in June 2003 for $517,500 including commission, and said the McGwire ball had been overpriced: without him and one other bidder, he said, it would have sold for $1.3 million. In a 2024 interview he said he was not interested in Aaron Judge's 62nd home run ball from 2022: 'I have the Major League record ball.'

The numbers

Game

September 27, 1998: Cardinals 6, Expos 3, at Busch Stadium; attendance 46,110

No. 69

Off Mike Thurman, third inning, solo

No. 70

Off Carl Pavano, seventh inning, first pitch, two on and two out, line drive to deep left

McGwire that day

3 for 3, two home runs, a walk, four RBI

1998 season

70 HR, 147 RBI, .299 AVG, .470 OBP, .752 SLG

The race

Sosa 66, Griffey 56; previous record Maris 61 (1961)

Timeline

1. 1961

   Roger Maris hits 61 home runs, the single-season record McGwire would break.

2. Jul 31, 1997

   Oakland trades McGwire to the St. Louis Cardinals.

3. Aug 8, 1998

   An authentication company announces an invisible DNA-ink marking method that would later be applied to the 70th ball.

4. Sep 8, 1998

   McGwire hits his record-breaking 62nd home run off Steve Trachsel.

5. Sep 25, 1998

   Sosa hits his 66th and briefly holds the record alone.

6. Sep 27, 1998

   McGwire hits Nos. 69 and 70 against Montreal; Philip Ozersky retrieves No. 70 under the left-field bleachers.

7. Oct 5, 1998

   The ball goes on display at the Cardinals Hall of Fame, through November 30.

8. Nov 1998

   Babe Ruth's first Yankee Stadium home run ball sells for $126,500, the prior record for a sports collectible.

9. Dec 7, 1998

   The ball is flown to New York for a pre-sale press conference.

10. Jan 12, 1999

    The ball sells at auction at Madison Square Garden for $3,005,000 to an anonymous phone bidder.

11. Feb 8, 1999

    Todd McFarlane presents himself as the buyer at a press conference at the Plaza Hotel.

12. Jun 4, 1999

    The McFarlane Collection tour opens at Dodger Stadium.

13. 2001

    Barry Bonds hits 73 home runs, breaking McGwire's record.

14. Nov 11, 2001

    McGwire announces his retirement.

15. Jun 2003

    McFarlane buys Bonds's 73rd home run ball for $517,500.

16. 2010

    McGwire publicly admits using performance-enhancing drugs.

17. 2016

    McGwire drops off the Hall of Fame ballot.

The world in 1998

• Jan 17, 1998

  The story of President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky breaks; the House impeaches him in December.

• Mar 23, 1998

  Titanic wins 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

• Apr 10, 1998

  The Good Friday Agreement is signed in Northern Ireland.

• Jun 1, 1998

  The European Central Bank is established.

• Sep 4, 1998

  Google is founded in Menlo Park, California, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

• Nov 20, 1998

  The first module of the International Space Station, Zarya, is launched.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Mark McGwire 70th Home Run Ball (1998) is number 27 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (33 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Ozersky said he would probably have just handed the ball over if the Cardinals had let him meet McGwire first.
• McFarlane wrote 'Do not spend more than $2.1' on a note by the phone, then kept bidding to $2.7 million.
• The underbidder, a New York necktie manufacturer, quit at $2.6 million.
• The ball was tagged with invisible ink containing synthetic DNA that glows green under a laser.
• Before the sale, the record for a sports collectible was $126,500, set just two months earlier by Babe Ruth's first Yankee Stadium home run ball.
• McFarlane later said that without him and one other bidder the ball would have sold for $1.3 million.
• The 62nd home run ball went back to McGwire for a Disney World trip and a minivan.