Via the Casper Star Tribune –

Steve Harshman spent about a week soliciting advice on whether to sell the final home run baseball at Yankee Stadium, which he snagged on Sept. 21. When he decided to unload it, Harshman handed over the details to an attorney, then went back to being a husband and father and a Natrona County High School physical education teacher and the school’s head football coach.

That was no more evident than Thursday night.

Harshman pushed around a wheelbarrow and toted garden tools while wearing an orange NCHS hoodie, knee-length gym shorts and dirty sneakers. The 45-year-old coach was leading the football team’s annual sophomore community service project. This year’s project involved planting trees at Cheney Alumni Field.

He hardly looked like a man about to cash in big time.

“My circle of friends is so limited, I drive to work and I go home at dark, and I do it all again the next day,” Harshman said matter-of-factly. “It’s business as usual around here.”

Harshman’s ball — hit by Yankees backup catcher Jose Molina in the fourth inning of New York’s 7-3 win over Baltimore — will be up for auction Saturday, when Guernsey’s auction house of New York will conduct a Yankee Stadium memorabilia sale at Madison Square Garden.

Harshman has heard estimates that his ball with fetch at least $200,000.

The pricing of memorable home run balls has been unpredictable since 1998. That year, the first home run ball in Yankee Stadium history — smacked by Babe Ruth — went for a then-record $126,000 to an anonymous bidder. A year later, Todd McFarlane, creator of the “Spawn” character, paid $3 million for Mark McGwire’s single-season-record 70th home run ball. Last year, fashion designer Marc Ecko purchased Barry Bonds’ career-record 756th home run ball for just more than $750,000.

Given the fact that McGwire’s and Bonds’ home run balls were purchased for publicity as much as pieces of memorabilia, it’s nearly impossible to gauge how high the bidding on Harshman’s ball will reach. It’s also likely Bonds’ career home run ball would have sold at a higher price if not for the alleged performance-enhancing drug-use controversy surrounding his achievement.

Ettinger said it’s possible the person who holds the first home run ball at Yankee Stadium is eager to bookend his or her collection with the final home run ball.

How cool would it be if A-Rod or Jeter bought this ball and then presented it to the Yankees, as a gift, to display in the new Yankees museum that’s to be a part of the new Stadium? What’s $150,000 (or so) to them – maybe one game check?