SEATTLE — The center-field stands at T-Mobile Park don’t quite have the reputation of the Wrigley Field bleachers, but a similar energy came out at the Mariners’ home ballpark Wednesday night.
_“Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back!” _
Seattle fans began that familiar chant immediately after Toronto’s No. 9 hitter, light-hitting shortstop Andrés Gimenéz, launched a 399-foot blast into the stands in right-center to tie the score at 2-2 in the top of the third inning.
The homer was pivotal to getting the Blue Jays back into the American League Championship Series as it sparked a barrage of 12 unanswered runs in a 13-4 victory that cut Toronto’s deficit to 2-1 in the best-of-seven series.
As the ball reached the second row of the seats, a bearded fan in a Lou Piniella jersey reached up and tried to barehand the playoff souvenir with his right hand, only to have it deflect off his palm and carom across the aisle into Section 105, where it lodged briefly lodged behind the back of woman in a gray hooded sweater.
This entire scene unfolded directly in front of me as I attended Game 3 as a long-suffering M's fan.
After a brief scramble, the ball was secured by a man in the row behind the woman … and that’s when peer pressure took over.
As the fan displayed a sly grin, the crowd began to implore him to return the ball to the field.
“Throw it back! Throw it back! Throw it back!”
It took less than 30 seconds for the crowd to win out, and soon the fan threw that ball back onto the field, where it was retrieved by Mariners right fielder Victor Robles and tossed into the infield.
Perhaps the ball ended up with Gimenéz — after all, it was the sixth-year infielder’s first career postseason homer in 24 career playoff games.
At cllct, we’re always fascinated by the value of game-used memorabilia, especially in the postseason, so we were curious just how much that fan might have tossed back onto the field.
The Blue Jays official team auction site currently features five lots for game-used balls, ranging in fixed prices from $75 (City Connect mystery balls) to $125 (pitch thrown by Kevin Gausman) to $600 (line out by Bo Bichette and double by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.).
But those are for regular-season baseballs and not for a playoff homer.
On Major League Baseball’s auction site, there are currently 10 auctions for game-used baseballs from Game 2 of the NLCS between the Dodgers and Brewers in Milwaukee.
With a week left in the bidding, the final hammer price is tough to ascertain, but the current bids range from $100 (Freddie Freeman foul ball) to $300 (Christian Yelich foul ball off Yoshinobu Yamamoto) to $860 (Shohei Ohtani single in Game 2).
So, obviously, the price will be influenced widely by the player involved and the circumstance. In perusing the game-used stores at various MLB parks, the average game-used ball sells in the $65-$85 range, and a run-of-the-mill homer from the regular season is probably in the neighborhood of a couple-hundred bucks.
Bear in mind, the MLB Authentication program will not certify balls that leave the field of play as it requires a clear line of site for its authenticators throughout the entire process. Ushers will often give fans a note saying they caught a ball that landed in the stands.
But that, of course, hasn’t stopped record sales for home-run baseballs, including last year’s $4.4 million price for Shohei Ohtani’s 50th homer — a ball that is still involved in an ownership dispute.
Given that it came in the ALCS and played such a meaningful role in Toronto’s big victory, we’d estimate Gimenéz’s homer would probably land in the $500 to $1,000 ballpark.
But for sentimental Blue Jays (and depending on the final outcome of this series), that baseball could end up being worth a whole lot more.
Kevin Jackson is the chief content officer for cllct. He spent 25 years at ESPN Digital Media, where he was the founding editor of Page 2, and nearly four years as the Executive Director for Digital Content at FOX Sports.