$500,000 for 500th : Man Who Caught Ball Eddie Murray Hit for Landmark Homer Antes Up

Why is it the guy who runs the Psychic Friends Network has to pay $500,000 for Eddie Murray’s 500th home run ball? Why didn’t he just call the network and find out where to sit with a fielder’s glove?

The ball Murray slammed Sept. 6 let him join Willie Mays and Hank Aaron as the only players with more than 3,000 career hits and 500 home runs.

Paying $500,000 for it will make Michael Lasky, a former professional sports handicapper, the buyer in the biggest sports memorabilia deal ever publicly struck.

Lasky, president and chief executive officer of Inphomation Communications Inc., the infomercial company behind the Psychic Friends Network, made his offer for the ball in Sunday’s editions of the Baltimore Sun.

The seller, Dan Jones, a 30-year-old marketing director who caught the ball, met with Lasky again Wednesday to discuss terms of the deal. What will he do with the $500,000?

“I haven’t really had time to think about it,” Jones said.

Lasky, a Bronx native, wants to keep the ball in Baltimore, on display at a downtown hotel he bought part of last year. Eventually, Lasky says he’ll give it to the Babe Ruth Museum.