The collective agreement on what to do after acquiring a historic baseball is as financially responsible as an “I just won the lottery” financial literacy course. The man who caught Shohei Ohtani’s 50/50 home run ball will get full marks: He rejected an initial bid — reportedly $300,000 — from the Dodgers and called the auction house, Goldin, the next day. With the current highest bid for Ball standing at $1.2 million with more than 16 days remaining, the decision was practical and well-executed, if unemotional. Since the seller wishes to remain anonymous, an ESPN article about the auction instead quotes Goldin’s CEO and founder, Ken Goldin, and Goldin takes the opportunity to post some uncensored self-advertisement: “This is one of those instances where our reputation has deteriorated.” Get the absolute highest price on hot market items [came] “In play…honestly, we had no competition at all.”
This is not a moral judgment on the man who caught Ohtani’s baseball. Imagine being so calm if a house falls into your lap; Opportunity would be a good thing. Ultimately, the point of any piece of sports memorabilia is to own or sell it, and owning an Ohtani-worth of baseball is synonymous with being extremely wealthy.
This explains why another fan filed a civil suit in an attempt to stop the auction, claiming that he originally owned the baseball during the scramble for it; Perhaps the courts should take this opportunity to define what constitutes outdoor grandstand hunting. All of this financial and litigation effort is being spent on baseball, which, judging by the picture on Goldin’s website, is baseball, with few specifics. There is a scuff mark running from the top of the Rawlings logo to where the layers curve closest to each other, smaller smears on both sides, and an MLB authentication sticker.
Of course, no one bids a baseball like some work of art to look at. The value of baseball is a representation of circumstance: Ohtani opening the 50/50 club in one of the greatest single-game performances of all time is part of that, but he also stole the base before he even hit it. Home run. In the hypothetical situation where events were reversed, it is difficult to imagine that the value of the baseball would be equal. No doubt some amount of retrospective glory would still go on, but it would be 50/49 baseball, and a fan couldn’t auction off a stolen base.
It’s an oddity in the overall decimal system that 50/50 as a metric matters at all. Ohtani broke the previous home run/steal record when he hit 43/43, but since that was achieved, the next one is 50/50. Every matching set he has recorded since then has had equal value mathematically. But it can’t be helped: thanks to the faltering development of the ten fingers, these groups have been given disproportionate weight. Since 43/43, the viewers’ goal has always been 50/50.
The way Shohei Ohtani plays baseball gives the impression that he is the only person on the planet who does not suffer from this way of thinking. He has proven time and time again that human traditions simply do not apply; Even though it might make the baseball he hit worth $1.2 million and counting, it can’t touch him.
What Ohtani has accomplished since achieving the 50/50 split is no less impressive than the period leading up to his achievement. In the same match, he got 51/51. From that game until the end of the season, he slashed .628/.667/1.186 over 48 games. That’s 27 hits in 43 at-bats. He hit three more home runs after the historic game, just for good measure. He stole seven more bases because he decided he could — just as he apparently decided to try 50 steals midway through the season — and broke Ishiro Suzuki’s record for the most steals by a Japanese baseball player. His career includes After 50/50 An unprecedented eight-game stretch From beating. For a split second, it looked like he could steal the batting title from Luis Arraez and clinch his first Triple Crown since Miguel Cabrera in 2012. He calmed down enough in the end to finish second, but he had analytics nerds. Pay attention to batting average.
Not long ago, there was a case to be made, at least a WAR case, that Francisco Lindor was a worthy MVP candidate alongside Ohtani. Even then, there was an implicit understanding that as long as Ohtani broke the 50/50 split, Lindor would have to accept his War Crown as a consolation prize. But Ohtani leaves no doubt. His game does not depend on circumstances. Despite everything going on outside of it, Shohei Ohtani will be busy playing baseball.
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