Self-confessed 'sports geek' and 'psycho fan' Todd McFarlane has purchased Barry Bond's 73rd home run baseball at Leland's.com Auction for $450,000, plus additional fees.  The price is a far cry from the $2.7 million that the Spawn creator paid for Mark McGwire's seventieth home run ball back in February of 1999.  When Barry Bonds obliterated McGwire's record by hitting 73 homers in 2001, McFarlane's purchase of the McGwire baseball was ridiculed.  Someone less dedicated to the game (and to collecting) might have been deterred from going after Barry Bond's 73'rd home run ball, but McFarlane stayed with it even though the price more than doubled on the final day of the auction.

 

The auction was held because Judge Kevin McCarthy made a Solomon-like decision in a dispute involving two fans claiming ownership of the ball.  The proceeds of the auction are to be split evenly between Alex Popov, who first caught the ball and Patrick Hayashi, who ended up with it.   The two claimants have engaged in a nasty legal battle that will eat up most of the money that they will receive from McFarlane.  Numerous commentators have expressed the hope that the Bond's baseball would not fetch the same sort of price as did McGwire's and their wishes were fulfilled.  Though initially some experts thought the ball would fetch well over a million, the prospect of someone hitting 75 homeruns in our current 'live' ball era evidently put a damper on the amount bid, leaving us with the question, 'How much would Todd have paid if he had been pushed?'