Going, Going, Gone

If you are me, it's a good day when you get to eat hot dogs at lunch. It's an even better day when you do so with a bunch of your sports-fan co-workers ....and you are all watching the last 15 minutes of the eBay auction listing for Barry Bonds' historic 715th home run ball (on a big projector screen).... and as the last minutes count down... the man who caught it stands there with you with his wife at his side!

Such was the scene today in one of our big conference rooms.

Andrew Morbitzer, who famously ended up with the ball while waiting in a beer line, and his wife Megan (who made the most well-timed "Honey, go get me a beer" statement in history) came to our eBay San Jose campus to join us in celebrating the close of his auction. Our Sports Memorabilia team set up big projectors so we could watch the time tick off the clock, and laid out a ballpark-themed buffet, featuring hot dogs with all the trimmings, and that San Francisco favorite, garlic fries....I feel sorry for everyone in meetings with me later today.

I had the chance to meet Andrew briefly.  I expected him to be overwhelmed by all these strangers coming to gawk and congratulate him. But he was cool as a cucumber, smiling and greeting everyone warmly, and posing for pictures with the ball (that's Ryan and I shamelessly jumping in there to the right - too bad the shadow from the projector is blocking everything but our heads).

As the time ticked down, the buzz in the room grew. Around the 10-minute mark, the folks sitting around me started guessing how high it would go - conventional wisdom had it somewhere between $180K and $250K. At 6 minutes, it crossed $200K, and a cheer went up from the crowd (and probably a bigger one from Andrew and Megan). Finally, after 69 bids, the final number landed on $220,100, making member 52817 the owner of baseball history.

It also meant that a hefty check was headed to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America as well, since the Morbitzers had pledged 10% of the final price to them. Sports fan or no, it was a fun thing to see. We took some video of the goings-on as well, so assuming it's watchable because of the lights in there (and our own video-rookie-hood), we'll post that here later on.