Few expected Shohei Ohtani’s historic 50th home run to come during Thursday afternoon’s game against the Miami Marlins.
The Dodgers star came into the day needing two home runs and one stolen base to become the first Major League Baseball player to hit 50 homers and steal 50 bases in a season, a tall task for a single game.
So, when the team at high-end Miami real estate firm Franklin Street were looking for tickets to a Marlins game for a support staff appreciation event, the main draw was the early start time of 4:40 p.m.. The group of 15 or so hopped on a bus and headed to the game, Ohtani’s record far from top of mind.
But that quickly changed.
When Ohtani stepped up to the plate in the seventh inning, he had already played the game of his life, on his way to the best stat line in baseball history: 4-for-4, two stolen bases and a home run the inning before.
“After he hit the first one, I just felt like it was gonna happen. He was just on fire,” Ryan Wold, director of multifamily sales for the firm, told cllct.
Everything was falling into place. Their positioning was perfect. If Ohtani's ball just cleared the left-center field fence, the group's seats just outside the bullpen would be ideal. Fewer people to fight with.
In the best video of the struggle for the Ohtani 50th home run ball, it looks like the roughly 30-year age difference won out.
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(Credit: Justin Walka) pic.twitter.com/mFl0GuXh08
Sure enough, that's exactly where Ohtani hit the ball. Wold was the first to lay hands on the record-breaking ball. After a ricochet, the ball bounced off a table and right into Wold’s reach.
“It just grazed right off my fingertips,” Wold said. “By the time I missed it, there were like three people right there on top of it. It was so fast.”
But the magnitude of the moment wouldn’t hit Wold until after the dust settled.
“I knew it was a record and everything, but I didn't realize how significant it is,” Wold said. “But then in that moment when everyone's just going crazy, I kind of realized ‘Wow, that's a big deal.’”
Most of the Franklin Street employees were behind Wold, but Max Matus, the son of Franklin Street managing director Greg Matus, had a great chance at grabbing the ball, which could be worth more than $1 million.
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Matus, who celebrated his 18th birthday Thursday, was standing just inside the bullpen door. When the ball fell, he rushed to it as others came from the opposite side.
"The ball bounced off the table, and it went under, and I grabbed it," Matus told cllct right before school on Friday morning. "Then the other guy had my hand between his legs holding my arm and took the ball from my hand."
That man, a 50-something in a black T-shirt, then emerged from the scrum screaming, telling Matus,"I got it!"
The high school senior, realizing in the moment how close he was to history and riches, let out an understandable expletive as stadium security ushered the man to a private location, where reportedly some negotiations took place before the fan decided he was going to leave the stadium with the ball.
The value of the ball remains intact, thanks to the fact that, just an inning before, MLB authenticators put covert markings on balls in play to Ohtani that will allow them to authenticate the ball at any time.
According to MLB sources, security brought the fan with the ball to meet the authenticator in an undisclosed location Thursday night. The authenticator confirmed the authenticity of the ball with the hologram.
As for Max Matus, he left the game, knowing he gave it his all.
He, amazingly, said he got a full night's sleep.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectible market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.