McGwire fan's advice for 756 ball: Sell! Sell!

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Glimpsing the business side of the game didn’t take the fan out of him. Ozersky has had season tickets about 20 rows behind the Cardinals’ dugout since the year after his big catch, and has seen every playoff game this decade. He wore a polo shirt with the Cardinals logo to Friday’s game.

His dedication paid off with another foul ball — a well-scuffed souvenir off the bat of Ronnie Belliard in Game 3 of the World Series. The ball ricocheted off the facade several rows back and dropped into his waiting arms, a nice break to be sure, but nothing like the circuitous route of McGwire’s money ball.

Several years later, Ozersky has memorized the sequence of events. He remembers the improbability, given that most of McGwire’s home runs were majestic shots and only No. 62 and 70 among his record drive were liners over the wall. Nevermind he was one of about 100 people in the box.

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“It came in, hit a guy on the hand — black and blue mark — bounced up, hit a girl in the hand, and I started to turn and saw her eyes looking one way. So I turned, and the ball was there,” Ozersky said.

There’s no chance he’ll catch Bonds’ record-breaking ball, which is likely to be worth a lot less than what he made off McGwire’s shot. After all, Bonds’ record 73rd home run ball in 2001 fetched only $450,000.

Of course, 1998 was a different time — a summer of love before the steroids scandal.

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“The stock market was at its peak and everybody in the country was glued to it,” Ozersky said. “People were wanting to get away from the Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, too. There was a lot to draw on.”