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American Morning

Man Claims Barry Bonds' Record-Breaking 73rd Home Run Ball Was Stolen from Him

Aired November 29, 2001 - 09:49   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Well when Barry Bonds hit a record- breaking 73rd home run in San Francisco's Pacbell Park, it set off a scramble into a free-for-all in the chase for the home run ball. A videotape, this tape, shows that Alex Popov caught the ball, at least it seems to. But it is impossible to tell if he held on. And when the crowd finally cleared -- and there was a bit of a melee after the event -- Patrick Hayashi (ph) have a had the baseball. He claims Popov dropped it. Popov says he was robbed. This week, it's all in front of a judge.

Joining us now is plaintiff in the case, and the first man to touch the ball is Alex Popov, joining from San Francisco.

Nice to have you with us.

ALEX POPOV, BASEBALL FAN: Nice to be here.

CAFFERTY: You look like a pretty good-sized guy. What happened? How did you lose control of that thing?

POPOV: Well, thanks, and I think that speaks the mob scene of what happened, and you know, the comment that you made earlier that I did catch the ball, that's correct, and you stated also, that it's hard to hard to see what happens on the video. Josh Capel (ph) that shot the video made that statement. He indicated that it does provide, you know, it shows the catch, and that combined with witness testimony, of which we have 14 statements, witnesses that were right next to me, that saw me catch the ball, that saw me control it, that saw me possess it. There was no loose ball. I was thrown to cement. So you know it was mugging. I caught that ball. I controlled it. I owned it. It was my ball.

CAFFERTY: Mr. Hayashi -- now this thing is growing by leaps and bounds. Mr. Hayashi has hired an umpire as an expert witness apparently for his apparently for this side of this argument, and he says, according to rules of baseball, his expert witness says, that it was not catch because you never controlled the ball, it was not in -- way down keep in the glove. You kind of site up there like ice cream cone.

POPOV: We could have hired four witnesses, four umpire witnesses that said it was a catch. We didn't want to get down to that -- stoop that low. We talked to the Umpires Association of America. They said there is no jurisdiction for an umpire in the fans. It's a police jurisdiction. They said -- they actually talked to Mr. Lee and Samaki (ph) and said, there is no ruling here, it doesn't apply, it's a legal matter the court should decide this, and that's what we believe Major League Baseball is saying, and the Giants, and so, you know, I ask you, why isn't Mr. Hayashi speaking with you? Why are they releasing scripted descriptions about what happened, and they're trying to spin it certain ways? I think America...

CAFFERTY: According to the information I have, and I don't know why he's not speaking. Maybe he will speak to me tomorrow. Maybe he will never speak to me. It doesn't matter, you are speaking to me. And according to what I'm reading, he has made some sort of offer to apparently share custody of this thing. We are talking about a baseball that is worth what? Potentially a couple of million bucks maybe one day?

POPOV: Well that's noble of Mr. Hayahsi to want to shore property that isn't his. It's a ball that I caught clearly. I called Mr. Hayashi when this happened, and I left him a voice mail, and I said, let's have a beer, this is getting crazy, let's talk about this. He didn't return my calls. The only reason that we began to legal process, is because we found out in the press that he hired an agent to sell the ball, so we wanted to protect the ball. We went to the judge, Judge Garcia. We said please protect this ball until we can have it court proceeding on this. The judge agreed with us. We were victorious on Tuesday. So the ball is now protected and we can go forward to get the ball back to its rightful owner, which is me.

CAFFERTY: What do you want to do with it if you win this case. What are you going to do with the baseball.

POPOV: The first thing that I would like to do is bring it back to San Francisco. Barry Bonds hit it here, I caught it here. Pacbell Park has had two wonderful years in it's history, and it's great to be part of that history. They won division last year. Barry set all kinds of records this year. That's the first thing. Then I would like to, you know, possibly hold a few charity events. Giants do wonderful things with charity, something along those lines, but the first thing to get it back to San Francisco.

ZAHN: Somewhere down the road, would you sell the baseball?

POPOV: Well, I really think Barry is going to set, you know, is going to be one of -- he is already the all-time slugger. He has slugging percentage. If you look at all statistics, he set numerous records. I think the, you know, ball is going to be even more valuable. I want to hang on to something that means a lot to me. What happens in the stands I ask you when Bonds hits number 600 next year? He is only 37 home runs away from 600. Are we having this riot going on when he hits number 600? I hope not.

CAFFERTY: Are you going out to ballpark next year?

POPOV: I hope I don't have to bring brass knuckles.

CAFFERTY: Well, I hope you don't either. I appreciate your time, and we'll be watching to see how this turns out. Thanks for being with us.

POPOV: All right, thank you. Have a great day.

CAFFERTY: All right, Alex Popov from San Francisco.

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