Anthony Rizzo wasn’t taking any chances. Tempting as it may have been for the Chicago Cubs first baseman to hand over the last out ball from the 2016 World Series to an auction house and await the windfall, he gave it to owner Tom Ricketts at last week’s championship rally. Doing otherwise would have likely unleashed the wrath of a few million Cub fans.
Better to have a few million people still love you than a million dollars or more on a check made payable to you, which some memorabilia sellers believe would have been the very least the ball would have brought in a public auction.
.@ARizzo44 gives the final out ball to @Cubs‘ owner Tom Ricketts. #WorldSeries #CubsParade https://t.co/kKth235BOU
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) November 4, 2016
Estimates vary and a selling price is pretty hard to determine since a final out ball from a team that went 108 years in between World Series wins is pretty much one-of-a-kind.
Rizzo had also snared the ball that sent the Cubs to the World Series and holding both—even for a day or two—had to have been quite a feeling.
Rizzo pocketing the final ball is the best https://t.co/hVyHl0Of4O pic.twitter.com/CbcEvDpdSX
— SB Nation (@SBNation) November 3, 2016
If the ball from last Wednesday’s victory in Game 7 had somehow come to auction, it would have generated massive publicity and likely attracted a huge audience of non-traditional bidders. That’s one reason why some of the estimates for its’ value are pretty high.
David Seideman of Forbes.com talked with dealers and auction houses about the auction for possibly the most important Cubs artifact of all-time.
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