Lawyer guiding sale of Aaron Judge's record 62nd home run ball that could fetch $4 million
As a baseball fan, Dave Baron of Palm Springs, California, understood the impact of Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees hitting a record-setting 62nd home run Oct. 4. What Baron didn’t expect was to be in the middle of what will happen to the baseball that might fetch $4 million at auction.
Baron is a partner in the Palm Springs law firm of Slovak, Baron, Empey, Murphy & Pinkney, some 1,300 miles from Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. That’s where Judge hit his 62nd home run in the second game of a doubleheader against the Texas Rangers. Baron had no connection with Judge, the Yankees or the Rangers until he received a phone call.
"I got a call from an old college buddy. He was saying Judge hit the home run, and I was saying yeah, I saw it, it was a nice moment, I was happy for Judge," Baron said. "But he kept talking about the home run, and I said 'Hey, we are San Francisco Giants fans, why are you so excited about the Yankees?'
"And he said you don’t understand. Cory caught the ball. Cory caught the ball," Baron said.
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Cory is Cory Youmans, who was sitting in the left field seats at Globe Field and caught Judge’s home run ball. Youmans is also the son-in-law of Baron’s old college friend. Even as he was being ushered away by ballpark security so the ball could be authenticated, Youmans and his father-in-law were thinking about calling a lawyer for help.
"I asked him where the ball was," Baron said. "He said 'I have it in my pocket.’ I said you’ve got to secure that ball."
It didn’t take long for word to spread that Baron was handling Youmans and the Judge home run ball, and it didn’t take long after that for Baron to start receiving phone calls.
"We already have one offer for over $2 million," Baron said from his summer home in Castle Rock, Colorado. "I’m been contacted by most of the major auction houses that handle this kind of thing, sports memorabilia."
Among the auction houses that have reached out to Baron are those who have handled home run balls by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and the sale of a collection of items from the career of basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Sale could come quickly
Baron said the idea is to sell the ball and to sell it relatively quickly. Even though 62 home runs is not the all-time single season home run record – that’s 73 by Barry Bonds – and even though McGwire and Sosa have hit more home runs in a season, Judge’s 62 is both a New York Yankees and American League record, and that should bring a big price, Baron said.
Bonds, McGwire and Sosa are also tainted by baseball's so-called steroid era, leading some to say Judge's 62 home runs is the legitimate single-season record.
"They don’t like to say a price, but the auction houses have told me they would expect that it would sell for well over $3 million," Baron said.
The prices for sports memorabilia can vary greatly depending on the back story of the item and the current market for such items. McGwire's 70th home run ball from 1998 sold for just over $3 million at the time, but is considered to be less valuable now because Bonds eventually broke that record with 73 home runs. But the Bonds' 73rd home run ball sold for only $450,000 in 2003.
A sale of Abdul-Jabbar's memorabilia including championship rings, most valuable player trophies and basketballs sold for $3 million in 2019, raising funds for his Skyhook Foundation, which sends financially challenged youths to summer camps to learn science and technology.
The sale of the Judge ball could come in the next few weeks, though Baron said the auction houses would be happy to have a sale complete by the end of the year. But the idea is definitely to sell the ball, not keep it.
"They are a young couple, and this would mean a lot to them," Baron said. "He’s a young guy, 31, and he works in this small office of an investment firm. So the money would mean something to them."
Baron said Youmans would be interested in selling the ball to someone who could get the ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
"Already the guy who owns Fanatics (a manufacturer and retailer of official sportswear including for Major League Baseball) has said he would give it or perhaps loan it to the Hall of Fame," Baron said.
Follow Larry Bohannan on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Sale of Aaron Judge 62nd home run ball guided by California lawyer
