Buyer Of HR Ball Comes Clean
Saying he was a "psycho fan" and a "sports geek," Spawn comic book creator Todd MacFarlane revealed today he was the anonymous bidder who paid more than $3 million for Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball.
"It was a mixture of business, charity and self indulgence to the nth degree," he said of the decision to buy the ball.
MacFarlane, a 37-year-old Canadian who lives in Tempe, Ariz., is a minority investor in the NHL's Edmonton Oilers.
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He said he would like to allow the Hall of Fame to show the ball at times, would make it available to charities to raise money and would let individual major league teams display it.
The price?
"I'd like to be able to take 20 swings in every major league ballpark," he said during a news conference.
MacFarlane said purchasing the ball for $3,005,000 was cheaper than buying a sports team. He mentioned the proposed $800 million sale of the Washington Redskins.
"The way I look at it, I'm up $799 million bucks," he said.
He said he wasn't worried about someone breaking the record McGwire set last September.
"If it gets too close, I saw what Tonya Harding did a few years ago, so there are options," he said, referring how Harding's entourage hired someone to attack rival skater Nancy Kerrigan.
In all, MacFarlane bought nine home run balls hit by McGwire and Sammy Sosa, including McGwire's first, 63rd, 67th, 68th and 69th, and Sosa's 33rd (his record 20th in June), 61st and 66th.
MacFarlane was dressed in a black collarless shirt and black jeans. The balls were diplayed in front of him in nine plexiglass cases atop nine columns, with four burgundy velvet ropes separating them from the crowd. Behind him was a banner with "Todd MacFarlane Productions" spelled out 103 times.
MacFarlane bought the ball at auction Jan. 12, paying $2.7 million to Philip Ozersky, a research scientist at Washington University who caught the ball Sept. 27 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Guernsey's auction house got an additional $305,000 as its commission.
Sosa's finl home run of the season, No. 66, cost MacFarlane $172,500. All the others he bought at the auction cost under $20,000 apiece.
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| 'Sports geek' Todd McFarlane with his $3 million baseball. (AP) |
MacFarlane outbid Irwin Sternberg, the president of the neckwear firm $2.9 million was as high as he was willing to go.
"I blew my life my life savings on this," MacFarlane said. "I'm not Donald Trump. I don't have a lot of cash."
The group of balls will be called "The MacFarlane Collection."
"Given that I name all my corporations after myself, I'll name it after myself," he said. "Better than the `Guy Who Has More Money Than Brains' Collection."
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