washington

Credit: AP/RON FREHM

For genome researcher and baseball fan Philip Ozersky of Washington University, St Louis, Mark McGwire's record breaking 70 home runs in the last baseball season was not only an event of semi-religious status, but also highly lucrative.

Ozersky, who attended the game with colleagues from the university, was able to catch the ball, which was sold at auction last week to an anonymous bidder for just over $3 million — 23 times the previous record price for a baseball.

Ozersky, who attended the auction wearing a tie decorated with a double helix, and says that he will give some of the money to charity, has no plans to give up his work on human chromosomes 7 and 22.