Oct. 13, 1960
Leading off in the bottom of the ninth, Pittsburgh Pirate second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a home run over the left-field wall to win the World Series against the New York Yankees. It was the first time a home run had ever ended a World Series. According to reports, Ted Szafranski, 13, caught the ball but returned it to Mazeroski after the game in exchange for two cases of beer. The ball has since been placed in the Hall of Fame.

Oct. 1, 1961
On the last day of the Yankees' 1961 season, outfielder Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's 60 single-season home-run record — which had been in place for 34 years — by hitting his 61st against the Boston Red Sox. Maris hit the homer into the right-field stands in Yankee Stadium against Boston's Tracy Stallard in the fourth inning. Sal Durante, a truck driver from Brooklyn, caught the ball and tried to return it to Maris after the game, but the star declined and said Durante should keep it and receive the bounty. Restaurateur Sam Gordon from Sacramento, Calif., later paid Durante $5,000 for the ball, displayed it for some time and then returned it to Maris. It's now in the Hall of Fame.

Apr. 8, 1974
In one of the most famous nights in baseball history, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves shattered Babe Ruth's record total of 714 career home runs, which had been in place since May 1935 and had long been considered unbreakable. After hitting it over the fence on a high fastball from Dodgers pitcher Al Downing, Aaron trudged around the bases with his head down until two fans ran up and patted him on the back as he headed toward third. The ball landed in the Braves' bullpen where relief pitcher Tom House caught it and returned it to Aaron. The ball can now be seen in an exhibit at the Ivan Allen Jr. Braves Museum & Hall of Fame, located on the northwest side of Turner field in Atlanta.

Oct. 21, 1975
This historic home run by the Red Sox's Carlton Fisk in Game 6 against the Cincinnati Reds kept the Sox's dream of a World Series Championship alive (though not for long — they lost 4-3 the next day in Game 7). Reds left-fielder George Foster came forward in 1999 saying he had retrieved Fisk's home run ball at the 1975 game. He then sold it at a sports memorabilia auction for more than $113,000.

July 20, 1976
Hank Aaron, playing for the Milwaukee Brewers, slammed the final home run of his career against the California Angels, setting the home run record at 755. Richard Arndt, a part-time member of the Brewers grounds crew, grabbed the home run ball with every intention of giving it back. But when he wasn't able to return it to Aaron in person, he decided to hold on to it, and the team fired him a few days later for not giving back the ball, which they considered their property. Arndt kept the ball in a safety deposit box until 1999 when Andrew J. Knuth, a money manager from Westport, Conn., bought it for a reported $650,000. In July 2007, Knuth said: "It will stay in my family, or it will go into the Hall of Fame. One or the other."

Oct. 15, 1988
The Los Angeles Dodgers' Kirk Gibson was up at bat in the last inning against the Oakland A's during Game 1 of the World Series, with his team down by one run with two outs. He hit a home run into the right-field stands on a full count, the first time a team had been behind in a World Series game and hit a homer to win in the bottom of the ninth. While it was one of the most memorable home runs in baseball history, the status of the ball remains unknown. Team historian Mark Langill told the Los Angeles Times in April 2007, "It's our biggest mystery. We have no idea where it ended up." And while Gibson has said that a woman once sent him a picture of the bruise on her leg where the ball hit her, no one's ever come forward with the ball itself.

Sept. 8, 1998
The St. Louis Cardinals' Mark McGwire smashed Roger Maris' 61 single-season home-run record, which had stood for 37 years, in this game against the Chicago Cubs. McGwire hustled around the bases hoping to get a double when he hit an 88-mph pitch toward the left-field foul pole, but it surprisingly went over the wall, 3 ft. inside the foul line. Cardinals groundskeeper Tim Forneris picked up the ball, and, although collectors would have paid millions, he gave the ball back to McGwire in the clubhouse. After the game, McGwire donated the ball, his bat, his uniform and the jersey his son had been wearing to the Hall of Fame. In exchange, they presented him with a red '62 Corvette.

Oct. 7, 2001
The San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds set a new record for most single-season home runs on the last day of the 2001 season in San Francisco's PacBell Park when he hit his 73rd. Two fans claimed ownership of the ball — Alex Popov, who gloved the ball for an instant, and Patrick Hayashi, who ended up with the ball. The ownership battled went to court and lasted 14 months until a judge ruled they would sell the ball and split the profit. It sold for $517,500 to comic book artist Todd McFarlane, who collects baseball memorabilia. He also has Sammy Sosa's 33rd, 61st and 66th home-run balls, and Mark McGwire's first, 63rd, 67th, 68th, 69th and 70th.

Aug. 4, 2007
Yankees infielder Alex Rodriguez hit a first-inning drive into left field off of Kansas City's Kyle Davies in this game, becoming the youngest player in major league history to hit 500 home runs. The ball landed into the hands of Walter (Sonny) Kowalczyk, a lifelong Yankee fan who emptied his bank account to buy season tickets. Kowalczyk, a graduate student from Trenton, N.J., hasn't decided what he's going to do yet with the ball — which could be worth more than $100,000. Rodriguez has said that he would, of course, like it back. Kowalczyk's brother Brian told the New York Daily News Aug. 6 that "If [Walter] was doing well in life, he would give [the ball] to the Hall of Fame."

Aug. 7, 2007
San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's long-standing home-run record by hitting his 756th into the right-center-field bleachers against the Washington Nationals. After fans battled for the ball in the stands, police extracted the ball's new owner — 22-year-old New Yorker Matt Murphy, clad in a Mets jersey and cap. The fate of the historic ball is as yet unknown; Murphy has so far declined media interviews, but baseball memorabilia experts say it's valued at $400,000 to $500,000.