Freddie Freeman etched his name in Los Angeles Dodgers postseason history when he hit a walk-off grand slam against the New York Yankees in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series.
The ball landed in the right-field pavilion and was retrieved by 10-year-old Zachary Ruderman, who attended the game with his parents.
It will be up for bidding from Dec. 4-14 through SCP Auctions in Southern California, with a pre-sale estimate of more than $1 million.
“Our family hopes the baseball will be displayed in Dodgers stadium so all Dodgers and baseball fans can view a very special piece of history for the City of Los Angeles,” the Ruderman family said in a statement.
The upcoming auction comes on the heels of the record-breaking sale of Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball that made him the first player to join the 50-50 club.
The ball was sold for nearly $4.4 million to a Taiwanese investment firm last month and is now on display in the country.
Freddie Freeman made World Series history
Freeman’s walk-off grand slam represented the first in World Series history and it was just the third game-winning home run by a team that was trailing in the postseason, joining Gibson in 1988 and Joe Carter of the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993.
“Oh, really? That’s pretty cool,” Freeman said at the time when informed of being in a category of his own. “Obviously it’s kind of amazing.
“It’s been a lot these last few months, been a grind, but things have been going so well at home. Max is doing great. Obviously the ankle is the ankle. It’s a sprained ankle. It’s as good as it’s going to get. But when you get told you do something like that in this game that’s been around a very long time — I love the history of this game — to be a part of it, it’s special.
“I’ve been playing this game a long time, and to come up in those moments, you dream about those moments even when you’re 35 and been in the league for 15 years, you want to be a part of those. It’s the kind of energy the crowd brought tonight. Game 1 of the World Series. Everyone’s been talking about this all week. For us to get that first win, especially like that, that’s pretty good, but we’ve got three more to go.”
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