Most Expensive Sports Memorabilia
Item: Mark McGwire's 70th-home-run baseball
Winning Bid: $3 million
Sold: 1999
You knew you were in for something special when Mark McGwire came to bat. With the best at-bats-per-home-run ratio in the history of baseball (10.61 compared to Babe Ruth's 11.80), the St. Louis Cardinal was destined for Major League Baseball history. But McGwire's real claim to fame came in 1998, when he beat the Chicago Cubs' Sammy Sosa for the record of the most home runs in a single season. Comic-book creator and music producer Todd McFarlane bought the record-breaking 70th-home-run baseball for $3 million and added it to his collection of nine other Sosa and McGwire baseballs from the 1998 season. In 2003, McFarlane also purchased Barry Bonds' 73rd-home-run baseball, for which he paid $450,000. Apparently steroid scandals decrease the value of sports memorabilia.