Investment banker Mike Mahan is making a big bet on Bonds -- baseball-slugging Barry Bonds, that is. Hoping to snare a milestone home run -- the superstar is on pace to hit his 700th by season’s end -- Mahan has bought out the right-field pavilion at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for two early-October games between the Dodgers and Bonds’s San Francisco Giants.
Mahan paid $25,000 for about 6,400 tickets and is giving some of them to friends, family and charities with the stipulation that anyone who catches a Bonds home run must sell the ball and split the proceeds with him.
The 28-year-old, who spends his days structuring and evaluating deals for West Hollywood, California, banking boutique Capital Entertainment, is already trying to get a return on his investment: He’s selling the tickets that he doesn’t give away for $15 -- with the same contractual conditions. But that’s peanuts compared with the potential millions to be gained from grabbing a piece of baseball history. Mark McGwire’s 70th-home-run ball of 1998, which set a single-season record at the time, fetched $3.05 million at auction. Bonds’s 73rd home run of 2001, which topped McGwire’s record and became the subject of a legal dispute between two fans, was auctioned in June for $517,500.
Rob Gillespie, president of Costa Ricabased online gaming company BoDog.com, puts the odds at 12 to 1 that Bonds will hit his 700th homer during the season-ending series in Los Angeles. It’s 40 to 1 that Bonds will by then have equaled or surpassed Babe Ruth’s career total of 714, which is second on the all-time list to Hank Aaron’s 755. Bonds, who began the year with 658 home runs, was up to 683 as of July 26.
Mahan, who has been with Capital Entertainment three years and previously worked for Bear Stearns in Los Angeles, is not only hoping that Bonds hits the big one; he’s also betting that the left-hander slams the fateful blast to right field. That’s where most of his hits go, but it’s by no means a sure thing. “If it works out, it will be a very valuable baseball,” says Mahan, a Los Angelesarea native who attends about 20 games a year at Dodger Stadium. “More than anything, the primary driver for this is to have a good time and potentially be a part of history.”
