10-year-old boy’s 1.5 million dollar baseball catch
The ball corresponds to the only walk-off grand slam in World Series history - hit by Freddie Freeman in Game 1 against the Yankees.
The Ruderman family, who live in Venice, California, have made millions by auctioning off the baseball that their 10-year-old son, Zachary, managed to catch with the help of his father during a World Series game at the end of October.
Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman hit a home run in the tenth inning of Game 1 against the New York Yankees. However, it wasn’t just an average homer but a walk-off grand slam - the only one in World Series history, effectively winning the same for the Dodgers. The ball soared high into the stand at Dodger Stadium where young Zachary Ruderman was sat with his father.
Rather than keep the ball as a memento, the family decided to auction it.
At SCP Auctions’ December Dynasty Auction, the ball sold for $1.56 million, just shy of the all-time record of $3 million (€2.86 million) for Mark McGwire’s 70th homer ball from the 1998 season. “It was pretty amazing. I was standing in my seat in the stands and a second or two after the bat was swung, I realized the ball was coming straight at us. It was honestly a reaction, an instinct,” young Zachery said. “”It was rolling around the ground and I saw it; I knocked it over to my dad and then he picked it up and handed it to me. It was truly the best moment of my life".
Freeman ball brings the Ruderman family fame in the US
As soon the young boy caught the ball, many people asked him if they could take a photo: “Even fans wearing Yankees caps,” he confessed. Since then, the family have become very well-known in the United States and with this ‘stroke of luck’, this family managed to make more than a million dollars.
The $1.56 million ball from the only walk-off grand slam in World Series history surpassed the $1.5 million that Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run ball sold for in December 2022 while the ball with which Shohei Ohtani hit his 50th homer - making him the inaugural member of MLB’s 50-50 club, reached $4.39 million at auction in October.
Christian Zacek picked up Ohtani’s historic homer ball during a scuffle with another fan with the case for ownership finally being decided in court.