The baseball Walker Buehler blew by the Yankees’ Alex Verdugo to secure the final out of the Dodgers' 2024 World Series victory has landed at auction.
Will Smith, who was behind the plate for the final out, as well as his wife, Cara, are selling the ball through their Catching Hope Foundation, in partnership with the Buehler Family Foundation and the Dodgers, with proceeds benefitting Los Angeles fire recovery efforts. (Buehler signed a one-year, $21 million deal with the Red Sox in late December.)
The auction begins March 21 on the Memorabilia Network, with an opening bid placed at $150,000.
Harlan Werner of @TheMemNetwork details the significance of the Dodgers' final out ball and its auction to benefit LA fire relief ⚾️ https://t.co/XLTJEG5YdT pic.twitter.com/9tgGi2h15R
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"Los Angeles has not only become home to us, but it has welcomed and supported our family since 2019," Will and Cara Smith said in a statement. "Our goal here is to give back and partner with the city that means so much to us in the years of rebuilding that are to come."
Dodgers Stadium will display the ball during the team’s first homestead against Detroit (March 27-29) and Atlanta (March 31 and April 1-2).
“This prized baseball represents one of the most special moments in the long history of the Dodgers,” the team said of the relic from its eighth World Series title.
Earlier this year, Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand-slam ball from Game 1 sold for $1.56 million.
Another game-used ball from the World Series, which Yankees star Aaron Judge infamously dropped to open the floodgates for the Dodgers’ Game 4 rally, sold for more than $40,000.
The ball from Shohei Ohtani's 50th home run last season, making him the first player with 50 homers and 50 steals in the same campaign, sold for a record $4.392 million in October.
Final-out balls from World Series have long been considered hot collectibles, with the final out from the 2000 World Series selling for $15,497.60 in 2010, the final-out ball from the 1909 World Series fetching $21,250 in 2016, and the final-out ball from the 1945 World Series going for nearly $9,000 in 2012.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture.