FOR NEARLY A quarter-century, one of the well-known residence run balls in baseball historical past sat on a shelf inside a case in Neil Dunleavy’s bed room closet gathering mud. Now and again he would retrieve it and gaze with admiration: the gold lettering, the spherical black smudge the place the bat struck it and the signature that had pale to the purpose that it was imperceptible to the bare eye, save for one clue: “#2.”
Dunleavy grew up on the outskirts of New York Metropolis, however he was raised at Yankee Stadium. His father, John, labored there as a vendor for 57 years. All three of John’s sons did the identical, together with Neil, who on Oct. 31, 2001, hopped in his automotive and drove the 5 hours from Georgetown College, the place he was a sophomore, to the Bronx.
Faculty had reduce into the variety of video games Dunleavy might work, however he was not going to overlook Sport 4 of the 2001 World Sequence, forthcoming natural chemistry check be damned. Lower than two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist assaults, the New York Yankees have been making an attempt to win their fourth consecutive World Sequence, and even when it meant promoting $10 applications, Dunleavy merely wished to be contained in the stadium, to soak within the mystique and aura of the place and the second.
Because the clock neared midnight on Nov. 1, Derek Jeter stepped to the plate. Arizona Diamondbacks nearer Byung-Hyun Kim was laboring. The Diamondbacks had received two of the primary three video games and have been primed to take a commanding 3-1 collection lead till Tino Martinez ambushed Kim for a ninth-inning residence run that despatched the sport into additional innings. With two outs within the 10th, Jeter dug himself an 0-2 gap. He fought — ball, foul, foul, ball, ball, foul — earlier than Kim’s 61st pitch of the sport caught an excessive amount of of the surface nook.
Jeter lofted the ball to the alternative subject. It stored carrying and snuck over the fence simply to the left of the 314-foot marker beneath the right-field foul pole, the place Dunleavy occurred to be standing. As a person to his proper flipped over the railing and people to his left jumped with pleasure, Dunleavy pounced on the ball, securing it along with his proper arm amid the chaos.
The ball is a time machine to the heyday of the Yankees, baseball’s final nice dynasty, and much more than {that a} relic of the profession of The Captain. For all of the indelible moments in his profession — the Jeffrey Maier residence run, the dive into the stands, the three,000th-hit residence run, the flip — the ball that gave Jeter the “Mr. November” nickname is maybe essentially the most iconic, a truth Dunleavy gladly shares along with his three youngsters.
“If somebody mentions it,” Dunleavy mentioned, “they’re like, ‘Oh, that is the ball daddy cares a lot about.'”
By no means has Dunleavy spoken publicly in regards to the ball and the way he got here into its possession. In latest months, although, he determined to promote it, and with the public sale ending June 14, he spoke with ESPN about that magical night time — and the way even when he’ll not have the bodily memento of it, he’ll without end personal one thing much more beneficial.
“I am promoting the ball,” Dunleavy mentioned. “I am not promoting the story.”
WHEN HE ARRIVED at Yankee Stadium on Halloween night time, Dunleavy figured he would spend his night at a merchandise stand along with his father and brothers, promoting hats and pennants and their best-selling merchandise, shirseys with Jeter’s No. 2 on the again. The Yankees wanted somebody to hawk applications that night time, although, and since he was the youngest, Dunleavy drew the brief straw.
Hawking applications wasn’t the worst task. They price $10, which meant Dunleavy would not must fumble with change or put together an merchandise like sizzling canine distributors. Packages have been a high-volume enterprise. He obtained to satisfy cool individuals — Dunleavy mentioned he gave applications to Adam Sandler and John Travolta free of charge — and hand tons of of individuals keepsakes of what he hoped can be a memorable night time.
However by the tenth inning, Dunleavy was gassed. He had walked miles across the stadium lugging reams of applications. He knew Jeter was coming as much as bat and requested a close-by safety guard if he might park himself within the entrance of the right-field stands and rely his cash — simply in case the sport have been to finish there.
“Would not or not it’s superior if he hit a house run proper to us now?” Dunleavy requested the safety guard.
Dunleavy knew how Jeter operated. At 27, Jeter already had cemented his legacy with 4 World Sequence wins. His inside-out swing had received them loads of video games, together with Sport 1 of the 1996 American League Championship Sequence, when 12-year-old fan Jeffrey Maier pulled a ball over the right-field fence for a tying residence run within the days earlier than replay evaluation. The Yankees went on to win their first World Sequence in practically 20 years.
“I am within the right-field nook, and I do know Yankees historical past, clearly,” Dunleavy mentioned. “I do know Jeffrey Maier, and I do know why the guard who’s standing subsequent to me is there within the first place: to stop Jeffrey Maier incidents from occurring.”
Dunleavy reached into his apron and grabbed tons of of payments, making ready to arrange them, when he heard the crack of the bat. As Arizona proper fielder Reggie Sanders tracked the ball, it was fading towards the nook — proper at Dunleavy. He performed baseball in highschool and is for certain he would have caught the ball if not for the wads of money in his fingers. It bounced to his left and caromed in entrance of Dunleavy. He dropped the money and went for a special sort of treasure.
He landed onerous on the ball, bruising his ribs. He held it tight as others dove towards him hoping it could squirt free. The person who had gone inverted over the barricade, Jimmy Brunn, mentioned: “It got here proper to me. My fingers have been on it. And he pulled it away. There have been about 50 individuals on prime of us.”
When the pile receded, Dunleavy stood up, appeared round and panicked. Not a single greenback remained on the bottom. Possibly the ball can be price greater than the cash he had procured that night time, however his first thought was: “My dad’s going to kill me.” Then Dunleavy’s eyes gravitated towards a safety guard, who, he mentioned, had “a soccer-ball-sized wad of crumpled-up 20s and 10s.” When he counted the cash, all $2,120 price of applications he had bought was accounted for.
Dunleavy celebrated by standing on a safety guard’s chair and holding the ball within the air, a lot to the delight of the followers nonetheless excessive off the win — together with Brunn, who handed Dunleavy his enterprise card and advised him he wished to purchase the ball.
“The New York child in me,” Dunleavy mentioned, “realized, ‘OK, I simply advised 5,000 individuals I’ve obtained a really well-known ball already. I higher get the hell outta right here.'”
On the stroll again to his father’s stand, Dunleavy began excited about what he wished to do with the ball. He might promote it to Brunn or the best bidder. He might preserve it. Neither appeared proper. Jeter had supplied so many unimaginable moments for Yankees followers. This was Dunleavy’s alternative to repay him.
“All of us wished to be Jeter,” Dunleavy mentioned. “So I am pondering, he hit it, I’ll give it to him. And hopefully he’ll admire it.”
He returned to Yankee Stadium early the subsequent day, ball in hand, and went to proper subject, the place he posed for a photograph with the ball. “I believed I used to be giving the ball away without end, that I would by no means see it once more,” Dunleavy mentioned. He met with Joe Lee, a batboy he knew, and requested him to deliver the ball to Jeter. He was hopeful that Jeter would emerge from the clubhouse, shake his hand, perhaps even give him a signed ball or bat.
Lee returned with out Jeter — and with a ball in his hand. Dunleavy seen the black smudge. It was the Mr. November ball, solely emblazoned with a faint signature, date (“11-1-01”) and the No. 2.
“Had I recognized I used to be going to get it again,” Dunleavy mentioned, “I might’ve given him a greater pen.”
DUNLEAVY RETURNED TO Georgetown and regaled his buddies with the story of the Mr. November ball. It turned a go-to story at events. His future spouse, Annemarie, heard in regards to the ball inside the first half-hour of assembly Dunleavy.
The ball stayed at his dad and mom’ home as he completed undergrad and remained there throughout his time in medical college. When Dunleavy moved into his personal place throughout his residency in New York Metropolis, it joined him. It went to Chicago when work took him there and finally again to Connecticut, the place he settled and at the moment works as an orthopedic surgeon who makes a speciality of knees and shoulders.
Dunleavy, now 43, nonetheless loves the Yankees and baseball. It taught him find out how to do math, supplied hours of leisure pouring by way of Beckett Baseball Card Month-to-month, stuffed his early maturity with reminiscences of his dad and brothers.
“It simply hit me,” Dunleavy mentioned. “Time’s passing. I sort of thought perhaps I would give it to [my children] after I’m outdated and grey. At some point, my spouse and I are at residence, this ball. Actually the case is gathering mud within the closet. We have not, like, featured this prominently in our home as a result of the youngsters might take it and throw it within the mud. I am like, ‘You recognize, there’s obtained to be one thing higher I can do with this.'”
Dunleavy’s daughters are 11 and 9, his son 5, and he acknowledges that “sometime, in fact, there’s that likelihood that they are like, ‘What did you do this for? We’d’ve wished it.’ However I do not assume so.” So he linked with the public sale home Goldin, which despatched it to the authentication firm JSA. An evaluation utilizing a video spectral comparator clearly confirmed Jeter’s signature and the date, even after the ink pale, and the ball was deemed genuine. With per week left, the bidding was as much as $110,000. Dunleavy mentioned he plans to donate a portion of the proceeds to Jeter’s Flip 2 Basis.
Regardless that the Yankees misplaced the World Sequence in heartbreaking style in 2001, it did nothing to reduce the that means of that ball and that second. The time round Sept. 11 was devastating, and baseball supplied one thing round which the nation might coalesce. Ten days after the Twin Towers fell, Mike Piazza’s go-ahead residence run for the New York Mets introduced a sliver of normalcy and hope. The Yankees represented the power of New York and the sport’s that means to the town and nation.
These emotions, and never the ball itself, are what endure for Dunleavy, who all these years later needs to thank Jeter for his inadvertent affect on Dunleavy’s life.
“Please inform him I advised this story to my spouse and we’re celebrating 17 years of marriage subsequent week,” he mentioned. “That modified my life, you realize? And she or he says it did not [convince her to date him], however who the hell is aware of, proper? Possibly it did. Possibly she noticed my enthusiasm in telling a narrative and preferred it.
“I owe this second lots. I’ve at all times been capable of make all people smile after I inform this story. I can inform this story to individuals who do not care about baseball, do not care about sports activities. Nobody can take the story away.”
