Colts Owner Jim Irsay Buys Volodymyr Zelensky Signed Baseball For $50k

An incredibly rare baseball signed by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky just sold at auction … and a portion of the proceeds are going to a relief fund for the country.

The winning bid for the autographed baseball came in at $50,103 … according to Boston-based RR Auction, which will be donating their cut of more than $15k to relief efforts in Zelensky’s war-torn country.

The sale price is higher than expected … remember, the ball was projected to go for $15k, and now that’s the figure that’s being donated.

Zelensky signed his last name on the baseball in two different languages … Ukrainian cursive and English print … with his signature underneath an MLB logo.

The ball comes with a letter signed by Volodymyr Yelchenko, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Nations in September 2019, when Zelensky left his John Hancock during a visit to New York.

Randy L. Kaplan, a government affairs specialist in the Big Apple, got the ball as a gift from Yelchenko … and he’s been collecting signed Major League baseballs from world leaders and heads of state dating all the way back to 1996 with Bill Clinton.