Barry Bonds' record-breaking 756th home run ball fetched $752,467 at an auction that ended Saturday night, setting a high mark for Bonds-related memorabilia but falling far short of the record paid for a baseball. The winner, whose name has not been released yet by SCP Auctions, placed a bid of $627,056 at 9:11 p.m. ET. After 30 minutes passed with no more bids, it was declared the winner, and a 20 percent commission of $125,411 was tacked on to the final price.
It was the 31st bid in the auction, which began Aug. 28 and lurched toward the half-million-dollar mark that the ball's owner, 21-year-old Matt Murphy of New York, had hoped to attract. As of early Saturday, the ball's price sat in the lower $300,000 range. Once the initial bidding stage closed, the most serious participants began driving up the price.
In the early evening, it passed the $500,000 mark that collector Todd McFarlane paid for Bonds' 73rd home run in the 2001 season. Never, however, was it in danger of coming close to what McFarlane paid for Mark McGwire's 70th home run from the 1998 season: $3 million.