Well, well, well. It looks like Matt Murphy had finally made the decision to *gasp* sell the Barry Bonds ball after all. In the least surprising move in sports memorabilia history, the Queens, New York native has decided to deal the ball to the highest bidder - citing looming taxation as the ‘deciding factor’.

“It wasn’t hard,” Murphy said. “It was simple math. I’m upset by the decision I had to make… I wanted to keep it. I’m young, I don’t have the bank account.”

I think I’m one of about 6 Billion people in this world who were 100% sure that Murphy would sell the ball. I don’t fault him AT ALL! Especially after Bonds himself made it known that he had no interest in the ball. Who wouldn’t sell it? Now the question is: “How much will it fetch?”

Murphy did choose against eBay however: The auction will instead be handled by Sotheby’s/SCP Auctions beginning Aug. 28 and going through Sept. 15. The starting bid has not been determined, and auction officials estimated the ball would bring at least $500,000.

Murphy says he plans on sharing part of his profit with his friend who attended the Giants game with him. They were in town for a brief stopover on a trip to Australia when Murphy found himself the possessor of the prized ball.

I’m guessing it will pull in over a million. I just think that since Mark McGwire’s 70th went for 3 million, the Bonds ball should get at least a third of that. That is a complete guess though. Who Knows?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 5:58 pm and is filed under Baseball, Yada Yada, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.