Barry Bonds' final home run ball -- the FULL story

In the last 24 hours, there've been hundreds of articles popping up all over the place about Barry Bonds' final home run ball and the fan who snagged it--but don't be fooled. MINE came first. I'd been working on this story for months, and Yahoo Sports published it the night before the fan came forward for the first time. I've heard from lots of people who thought Yahoo did a great job with my story, and I agree, but guess what. The editors completely rewrote the beginning and cut more than half of what I originally sent them. So here it is...a world exclusive...right here on my blog...my full version of the story...all 4,325 words of it...with more details and quotes and links and photos than you'll find anywhere else. Major League Baseball didn't authenticate the ball; hopefully this story will. Enjoy...
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Unraveling the mystery of Barry Bonds' final home run
by Zack Hample

For an instant, Robert Harmon thought his life had changed forever. Last summer, the 58-year-old retiree from Arvada, Colorado, got his hands on a million-dollar Barry Bonds home run ball--or so he thought.

"I was pretty bummed," he said. "I went from thinking, 'Finally, I can get my dental work done, I'm debt-free!' to 'Well, I'm broke again.'"

More than seven months ago, when Bonds launched his record-breaking 756th home run toward the right-center field bleachers at San Francisco's AT&T Park, there was such a wild melee for the ball that a fan in a wheelchair was knocked over and an usher nearly died from an asthma attack. Fashion designer Marc Ecko ended up buying the ball for $752,467 and creating a web site where fans could vote for its fate. Eight days and 10 million votes later, the public decided to brand the historic ball with an asterisk and send it to the Hall of Fame, prompting Bonds to threaten boycotting his own induction if the Hall accepted it.

But this isn't about that ball. No. 756 is old news. In the sports memorabilia world, a player's final home run ball--not the one that breaks the old record, but rather the ball that finalizes the new one--is most coveted.

After Bonds connected on No. 756 to move past Hank Aaron, each of his home runs became the new final home run. Every fan who snagged one became an instant celebrity and, briefly, at least until the next one was hit, a potential millionaire. When the season ended on Sept. 30, every home run ball that Bonds had hit after 756 had been accounted for, except one: No. 762. The Final Ball.

Weeks before Bonds broke the record, officials at Major League Baseball began marking the balls that were pitched to him, and official authenticators were placed in the stands. This wasn't an uncommon practice. Ever since an FBI sting in the mid-1990s nabbed dozens of high-profile memorabilia counterfeiters, specially marked balls, often with invisible infrared markings, have been used whenever a player has approached a major record or milestone. Mark McGwire's 70th and final home run ball in 1998 had been marked, and as a result, comic book mogul Todd McFarlane felt confident enough to spend over $3 million for it. The following season, Wade Boggs' 3,000th career hit--a home run which landed in the right field bleachers at Tampa's Tropicana Field--had also been marked, so Boggs knew he had the real ball when a generous fan returned it. Five years later, Ichiro Suzuki's two biggest hits--his 258th which broke the single-season hits record and his 262nd which established the new one--were both harmless singles that did not reach the seats, but they were marked. No harm done. Better safe than sorry.

So why wasn't Bonds' 762nd home run ball marked?

The Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball declined to comment, but according to various reports and rumors, MLB briefly stopped marking the balls shortly after the record-breaker--presumably because the intricate process was a hassle--and planned to resume during the final two weeks of the season. MLB had taken a similar gamble in 1998, and it paid off because McGwire kept adding to his record on a seemingly daily basis. Last season, however, the aging Bonds got injured down the stretch and hit his final home run with more than three weeks remaining.

Still, under normal circumstances, the unmarked ball could have been authenticated on the spot by MLB, but due to a bizarre event that unfolded as the ball reached the left field stands, it could not be done.

In stark contrast to the sea of people attacking each other for Bonds' record-breaker at a sold-out AT&T Park, only three fans were involved in the scramble for No. 762 at Denver's half-empty Coors Field.

Harmon, a Rockies fan and season ticket holder, was one of them, and after a brief scuffle in which all three men went down, a television camera caught him holding up a ball in the palm of his glove.

"Everybody in the stands was coming up to me and congratulating me and taking my picture," said Harmon, whose scruffy, white beard has made him a recognizable fixture at games. "I even had a guy on the phone call me and say, 'Hey, Robert, nice snag, I see you got the ball!' Then this other kid runs up and says, 'We got the baseball' and I said, 'No, I got the baseball,' and the rest is history."

History is not always pretty. Back in 2001, two Giants fans ended up in court (and became the unwitting stars of a full-length documentary) after fighting for custody of Bonds' record-breaking 73rd and final home run ball of the season. The battle for No. 762 could have followed a similar path--except in this case each fan was actually holding a ball.

At first, Harmon and other collectors believed that a second ball had been thrown into the scrum by a prankster sitting behind them, but after studying a particular slow-motion replay shot from a center field camera, they discovered that the young man who ended up getting the real No. 762 had been holding an extra ball in his bare hand at the time. No one knew why. No one knew who he was. Harmon and his friends had never seen him before and none of them has seen him since.

How did Harmon know HE didn't have the real ball?

"When I really looked at it," he said. "I'm positive that it's not a game ball. It's like a batting practice ball or something."

Experienced collectors can tell the difference. That's because balls used during games are never taken right out of the box and put into play; instead they get rubbed up with special mud to reduce the glare and slickness--Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud, to be specific, which is collected at a secret location off the Delaware River in Southern New Jersey and applied by the umpires' assistants. Naturally, some balls receive a little more mud than others, but all gamers end up with a soft, grayish-brown hue which upon close inspection appears grainy because of the tiny pores in the cowhide. Moreover, umpires discard game balls after the first sign of wear, but mud-free practice balls can last for months. In other words, game balls are dirty but otherwise unblemished, while practice balls are often clean but beat up.

Harmon's ball looked like any of the hundreds he had snagged over the years during batting practice--and different from each of his 16 game home runs. It was obvious which ball was which, but according to one of the police officers who'd been assigned to the left field pavilion that night as extra security for Bonds, the authenticator refused to authenticate the real ball because there was "too much confusion."

Consequently, the young man who grabbed the real No. 762 was never approached by an MLB official, nor was he whisked away by stadium security or interviewed on TV. Instead he returned to his seat, watched most of the game, and disappeared before the final out.

For the rest of the season, few people thought about him or his ball, but after Bonds failed to hit another home run, the official manhunt began.

Days before Game 1 of the World Series, a collectibles magazine called Tuff Stuff published a story titled "Whereabouts of Potential $1 Million Ball Still Unknown."

In mid-November, CNBC.com issued an All Points Bulletin for the owner of No. 762. This prompted five phony claims and a follow-up story two months later reporting that the real owner was still at large.

Around that time, Jeff Idelson, a spokesman for the Hall of Fame, acknowledged that Cooperstown was interested in No. 762, but had not attempted to locate it.

"At this point," he said, "the likelihood or reality is that this ball has gone the way of Bobby Thomson's home run ball from '51. It no longer exists."

Still, despite the media attention and unmistakable significance of the ball, the Rockies refused to get involved.

"We're gonna wash our hands of it," said Jay Alves, the Rockies' Vice President of Public Relations. "It's all pure speculation."

Harmon, meanwhile, had been approached by so many people who thought he had the ball that he embarked on his own crusade to find it. He studied the television footage. He made phone calls. He asked other fans. He talked to other baseball collectors.

Nothing.

After months of dead ends, he contacted a friend--a man named Bob who happened to be an usher in his section--and learned that the young man who got the ball was the son of two season ticket holders named Dave and Deb who sat nearby. Harmon, an avid photographer who always brings his camera to Coors Field, vaguely knew them and wanted to get in touch anyway.

"There was this outside chance that [their son] might have the ball, but that's not what I was after in the first place," said Harmon. "I wanted to get them some photographs. I had a great picture of her at one of the playoff games."

Harmon didn't know how to contact Dave and Deb so he called the Rockies, talked to his ticket representative, and explained the situation.

"He said he'd see what he could do for me," said Harmon, "and then about a week later Deb called. She was talking about how Dave was in the hospital in a medically-induced coma, and you know, well, jeez, there are certain things I couldn't talk about, but I let her know that I had some photographs, and she said, 'I want all the pictures that you have.'"

Harmon spent the next two days combing through every pic he'd ever taken at Coors Field. He found a few extras, burned them onto a CD, dropped it in the mail, waited a week, left a couple voice-mails, and finally got Deb on the phone. She was in the hospital visiting Dave who had snapped out of his coma. The mood was so upbeat that Harmon felt comfortable bringing up No. 762.

"I just asked her," recalled Harmon. "I said, 'I've been asking everybody I know if they know who has the ball, and she says, 'Yeah, my son,' and I said, 'Whoop, okay, that's all I needed to know.' And so we started laughing and giggling and having a good time."

The son. Jameson Sutton. Twenty-four years old. Unemployed. Lives in Boulder. Loves the Rockies and Yankees. Grew up rooting for Barry Bonds and doesn't believe he used steroids.

Sutton, a Colorado native who attends more than 20 Rockies games each season, had previously caught half a dozen balls in his entire life. One was an Alex Rodriguez homer during batting practice. Another was a Ken Griffey Jr. homer during a game. Still, he wasn't actively thinking about catching another, even as Bonds stepped into the batters box.

"I thought it'd be cool if he hit one that day, just to see it," said Sutton. "I was just watching pitch by pitch...it was like the first inning, and it happened so fast."

Indeed, it happened on the 12th pitch of the game--a 99 mph fastball from rookie right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez--and Sutton was still holding a practice ball that a groundskeeper had thrown to him earlier in the day. Why? He didn't have room in his pockets, and the ground was still wet from an afternoon shower.

As No. 762 approached the seats, television cameras showed Sutton and a larger man running through an aisle from opposite directions and colliding behind the wall, just in front of Harmon.

"He hit me pretty hard on the left," said Sutton, who did not tape the game and only saw a quick highlight of No. 762 later that night. "I felt the ball hit me above my glove where I was gonna catch it. It happened fast, so it was really hard to tell, but from what I know, he pushed my glove down some...he hit me on the upper arm area, and I fell and went down with them because we all got tackled."

Harmon, who weighs about 165 pounds, also remembers getting hit by the other fan.

"He hip-checked me out of the way. I was like three steps away and then boom! I mean, he body-checked me and literally picked me up off the ground and moved me over."

The other fan, it turned out, is a notorious ballhawk from San Francisco.

Jake Frazier, a 26-year-old Giants fan who works "in the medical marijuana business," attends about 100 games a year, both at home and on the road. He's caught thousands of batting practice balls--some in stylish, behind-the-back fashion--and more than 25 game home runs, including three from Bonds and one off the bat of Troy Glaus during Game 5 of the 2002 World Series. He's also known for crashing into people and reaching in front of them for balls--so known, in fact, that other ballhawks in the Bay Area (and beyond) now describe themselves as getting "jaked" whenever anybody denies them.

Frazier, who had watched No. 756 sail five feet over his outstretched glove, admitted that he treats his hobby like a blood sport, but denied bumping into Harmon.

"He was bringing up the rear," said the 240-pound Frazier. "I didn't hip-check him out of the way. I just beat him to the spot. He's an old-timer, dude. If I hip-checked that guy, he wouldn't ******' be standin' up...it's a baseball, man, it's a prize. You have to be aggressive. If you're not aggressive, you won't get it. You're out there playin' in a metal and concrete jungle, and there's people competing, so yeah, you know, you get little scrapes and bruises."

The scrape-worthy scramble for No. 762 began after the ball deflected off the heel of Sutton's glove and bounced into the aisle.

"I didn't have a free hand," said Sutton, who let go of his practice ball when he saw the real one in the aisle. "I had to drop it to reach and get the Bonds ball, and I was more than happy to do that."

Then there was the issue of fan interference.

Before Bonds had finished rounding the bases, Rockies left fielder Matt Holliday was protesting that a fan had reached out of the stands and touched the ball--but to no avail. The home run stood, and although stadium security briefly gathered around Sutton while reviewing the play, he was allowed to keep the ball and return to his seat.

Frazier, a front-row season ticket holder at AT&T Park, where security has intensified in recent years, has had countless run-ins with stadium personnel.

"I guarantee you that in San Francisco, that guy would've been ejected, and that ball would've been taken away from him," he said.

Harmon also felt that Sutton had interfered.

"I'm gonna call myself a seasoned veteran at catching home runs out there," said Harmon. "My point is, I would not have tried to catch the ball, especially because I'm a Rockies fan. He had no business reaching over the fence...I think it's so apropos that a guy who cheats to hit home run baseballs ends up hitting his last one to a fan who cheats."

Sutton shrugged off the accusation.

"They interfered with ME because I was getting ready," he said. "It's all part of the fun. I'm not mad at nobody. I was fine after that."

He should be.

Not only did he become a member of the exclusive "700 Club," but he gained entry by beating out a master strategist.

"I know where to play Barry," said Frazier. "I've been watching him for 15 years. It depends on who's on the mound. Is it a lefty or a righty? Is it a junk pitcher or a guy with some heat? Is it somebody with the balls to challenge Barry or is it somebody who's gonna stay on the outside corner with a bunch of crap? There's different ways to play Barry, but his swing has stayed pretty much ******' the same over the years, and it's even easier to predict when he's trying to hit home runs...Ubaldo Jimenez is a right-hander that throws hard. He was hittin' a hundred miles an hour on the radar gun, so I figured if Barry's gonna hit a home run, he's not gonna pull the guy, he's gonna go opposite field. Everybody on the Rockies was sayin', 'Watch out, this is our new stud,' and I didn't expect the new stud to pussyfoot around with Barry. I mean, if you were a new stud in Major League Baseball and you came in, what would you want to do? You'd want to strike out the home run king, and you'd come at him with your best stuff."

Frazier ended up getting a dose of Sutton's best stuff--all 175 pounds of it--and no one seemed happier than Harmon.

"Jake bangs into me, knocks me out of the way, and gets in front of me," he said, "and then this other kid crashes into him. Finally, somebody jaked Jake."

Lee Wilson, a legendary Bay Area ballhawk who's caught 60 game home runs including Nomar Garciaparra's first career blast and Bonds' 64th in 2001, has been victimized by Frazier on numerous occasions. Still, he was quick to defend his fellow ballhawk on No. 762.

"There's been a lot of conditioning for us at [AT&T Park] not to interfere," said Wilson. "I think that made him a little less aggressive than he normally would be. He kinda held back and waited to make sure he wouldn't interfere, and that other guy had no such compunction."

Frazier, of course, had his own excuse, albeit a questionable one: "I'm always stoned to the bone during games. I'd been smokin' big weed about ten minutes before that ******' guy hit that ball, so they had a little advantage on me."

So, what about the ball? What did Sutton do with it? Does he still have it? Does he want to sell it? Would he even be able to sell it since it wasn't authenticated?

"I think that guy's **** out of luck now," said Tyler Snyder, a 21-year-old community college student who knows a thing or two about the authentication process.

Two years ago, Snyder caught Bonds' 714th career home run in Oakland--the longball that tied Bonds with Babe Ruth for third place on the all-time list.

"Within five seconds they had me surrounded," he said. "All the Oakland cops wanted to see it, so I just pulled it out of my glove...and then the MLB authenticators came right then and looked at it and marked it. They put a little sticker with the serial code number on it, like a six-digit number or something like that. They got all my information."

When Sutton snatched No. 762, however, the authenticator was nowhere in sight, but five innings later when Giants catcher Bengie Molina crushed his 100th career home run into the adjacent section, the authenticator was all over it.

"That's what I was waiting for, but I guess they weren't doing it that night," said Sutton. "I don't know. I looked online for some more info on it. I guess Colorado wasn't marking [the balls]. I didn't know what else but to just hold onto it until I got home and put it in a case and just sit on it."

Before Sutton left the stadium, several fans wanted to see the ball, but he never let it leave his hand. It was this protective approach that initially kept him from going public--and ultimately led him to tuck the ball away in a safe deposit box.

"I've seen a couple things online where they were looking for who has it," he said, "but I didn't know how risky it would be to have my name out...You know, there could be people trying to find me to steal it or hurt me to get it, so I was just keeping quiet."

Sutton kept his eyes on Bonds for the remainder of the season, knowing that another home run would greatly reduce the value of his ball, but he never rooted against him.

"I thought it would be cool if he could keep adding to his record, but he never did, and that's when I was like, damn.'"

Of course, No. 762 is only the final ball for now, and no one's sure if it will end up that way. Bonds has said he wants to play again in 2008, but he might not have a choice; the 43-year-old slugger may soon be heading to trial where he'll face potential jail time if convicted for lying to a grand jury about his steroid use.

Mike Heffner, President of Lelands, the sports auction house that sold Bonds' 73rd and final home run ball from 2001, has expressed interest in No. 762.

"If it's his last home run and it IS the record that everyone's shooting for, it should be worth a million dollars."

If you think that's crazy, consider this: Every semi-serious baseball fan knows the significance of the number 714, but even the most hardcore fans probably wouldn't be able to tell you anything about the number 139. That was Ruth's record-breaker way back in 1921 when he passed future Hall of Famer Roger Connor on the all-time list.

According to Heffner, there's another reason why collectors are willing to spend big bucks for a milestone home run ball.

"It has to do with the value of the publicity that the person who buys it gets," he said. "Todd McFarlane is a very smart gentleman, and I don't think that he thought at the time that the McGwire ball was worth three million dollars, but he definitely got three million dollars' worth of publicity out of it...I didn't think that the other Bonds ball--seven fifty-six--would sell for more than five hundred thousand at the time, and it did sell for more because Mark Ecko bought it and he had other ideas for it. He wasn't buying it because it was a piece of history to put in his display room. He was buying it for its marketing value, which is very smart."

The opportunity to make some money could not be coming at a better time for Sutton and his parents. Dave, who's actually Sutton's stepfather, lost a lung to cancer several years ago and recently developed pneumonia in the other. He had to take a leave of absence from his job at a real estate firm and Deb, an interpreter for the deaf, has taken her own leave to be with him.

Days after Sutton snagged No. 762, he turned down a $5,000 offer for the ball from a friend of the family. Now, in order to convince a stranger to pay a whole lot more, Sutton faces the challenge of proving that his unmarked ball is, in fact, THE ball.

Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, Chairman of the Forensic Science department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, doesn't think No. 762--or any game-used baseball, for that matter--could be identified in a DNA lab.

"I think that the result of testing would be inconclusive," he said. "It would be very unlikely that you could get a useful fingerprint from the ball, given that it is not pristine and it's been handed around from person to person."

Those people include the Rawlings factory worker who hand-stitched the ball in Costa Rica, the umpire's assistant who rubbed mud on it before the game, the ballboy who brought it onto the field, home plate umpire Gary Darling who took it from the ballboy, Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba who tossed it to Jimenez, and of course Sutton.

"There's got to be a mixture of DNA, if it's present at all," said Kobilinsky. "When you have mixtures like that, of more than two or three people, it's going to be a nightmare to determine if a particular person's DNA is on the ball."

Even if Darling, Torrealba, and Jimenez were known to have touched Sutton's ball, there'd be no way to prove that it wasn't merely one of the many foul balls that reached the seats before Jimenez left the game in the bottom of the fifth inning.

"When two objects make contact," said Kobilinsky, "there's an exchange of material from one to the other, so in theory the bat should've left some material on the ball and vice versa, but again, what is theory and what is reality and what can be detected is another thing...This is where we separate the television show 'CSI' from reality; not everything can be solved, even with forensics."

Sutton's best option, therefore, assuming Congress doesn't call him in for a special hearing, is to take a lie-detector test.

"That could do nothing but help the value of the ball," said Heffner. "I would recommend that...if the person comes forward and wishes to sell it that that be one of the stipulations."

Is Sutton willing to comply?

"A hundred percent, oh yeah," he said. "I can see why. It's a hundred percent, so I'm not worried."

As for Harmon, he's grown to appreciate his consolation prize.

"It's something that was associated with a moment in history," he said. "I mean, wouldn't that be something if I get to tell my grandson to go to Cooperstown, and then where the ball's clearing the fence, there I am...That'd be kinda neat, but I don't think that would ever happen. They don't show fans who catch baseballs."

Copyright 2008 by Zack Hample