Jeffrey Maier's Famous Glove Sells For $22K At Auction
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — The glove Jeffrey Maier used to pull Derek Jeter's famous home run over the wall during the 1996 AL Championship Series against Baltimore has been sold at auction for $22,705.
Heritage Auctions says the glove was purchased by an anonymous collector Saturday night, with no mention of what the buyer plans to do with it. When Heritage announced the auction on Monday, it didn't identify the owner, who it said had purchased the glove from Maier.
Maier was a 12-year-old fan in the right-field stands on Oct. 9, 1996, when he reached over the outfield fence at Yankee Stadium and got his glove on Jeter's eighth-inning drive, preventing Tony Tarasco from catching it.
Maier dragged the ball over the wall, fumbling it in the process, but umpire Rich Garcia declined to call fan interference.
Jeter was awarded a home run that tied Game 1 of the ALCS, and the Yankees won in 11 innings. Baltimore's protest was denied by baseball's ruling executive council and AL President Gene Budig.
"From that day forward, things were always a little different," Maier wrote last year in a guest column for Bleacher Report. "In the days following the game, I found media members at my school, at my home and talking to classmates, neighbors—anyone even loosely connected to me that they could get their hands on. Mail arrived at our home without even needing a full address. ... I wouldn't change a thing that has happened in my life after going after that home run ball. All life events happen for a reason, and you grow from every experience."
New York went on to defeat the Orioles in five games and win the first of its four World Series titles in five years.
"Even to this day, almost 20 years after the fact, this glove still continues to elicit smiles from Yankees fans and curses from Orioles fans," said Chris Ivy, Director of Sports Auctions at Heritage. "It's an innocuous enough little black leather Mizuno glove but it still inspires big emotions and commanded a big-time auction price."
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