A fun piece of "Who Would Have Known?" history will hit the auction block next week.
It's a ticket to the June 11, 1995, game between the Montreal Expos and the San Francisco Giants, and it's expected to sell in the $1,000 range.
A ticket to the Expos' 10-8 victory over the Giants in 13 innings at Candlestick Park wasn't worth even a couple dollars until an enterprising collector found four tickets to the game and connected them to an interesting event that happened before the first pitch.
Thirty years ago today, the Expos, while in San Francisco, invited a 17-year-old local kid to take batting practice at Candlestick Park.
Photographers weren't taking pictures of him, reporters weren't particularly interested either, as only the Montreal Gazette had a small note about his presence.
The guy at the plate became one of the greatest of all-time, albeit in a different sport.
"The Expos had their 18th-round draft pick Tom Brady take BP yesterday, a left-handed hitting C, is from nearby Serra High School, a school that produced Barry Bonds and Gregg Jefferies," the Gazette's Jeff Blair wrote.
And then comes an ominous sentence: "There's work to be done getting Brady signed, however. He's signed a letter of intent for a football scholarship at Michigan as a QB."
Brady, of course, went to Michigan, got drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft, replaced an injured Drew Bledsoe and the rest is history — seven Super Bowl wins and the NFL's all-time leader in wins, passing yards, completions and touchdowns.
The same Brady batting practice ticket sold at Heritage for $960 in December, around the same price that a Michael Jordan batting practice ticket goes for. Jordan famously took batting practice with the Chicago White Sox in 1990, which served as the basis for a 1991 Upper Deck baseball card.
Brady has Expos cards, thanks to Fanatics playing the "What If?" game with the 2003 Bowman Chrome Draft set. His 1/1 signed Superfractor sold for $158,600 last year at Goldin.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.