Steve Harshman spent about a week soliciting advice on whether to sell the final home run baseball at Yankee Stadium, which he snagged on Sept. 21. When he decided to unload it, Harshman handed over the details to an attorney, then went back to being a husband and father and a Natrona County High School physical education teacher and the school's head football coach.

That was no more evident than Thursday night.

Harshman pushed around a wheelbarrow and toted garden tools while wearing an orange NCHS hoodie, knee-length gym shorts and dirty sneakers. The 45-year-old coach was leading the football team's annual sophomore community service project. This year's project involved planting trees at Cheney Alumni Field.

He hardly looked like a man about to cash in big time.

"My circle of friends is so limited, I drive to work and I go home at dark, and I do it all again the next day," Harshman said matter-of-factly. "It's business as usual around here."

Harshman's ball - hit by Yankees backup catcher Jose Molina in the fourth inning of New York's 7-3 win over Baltimore - will be up for auction Saturday, when Guernsey's auction house of New York will conduct a Yankee Stadium memorabilia sale at Madison Square Garden.

The 85-year-old "House That Ruth Built" will be demolished in March. The Yankees plan to move into a new ballpark across the street when the 2009 season opens in April.

Mitch Edwards, an attorney with Anthony, Nicholas & Tangeman, LLC, in Laramie, was charged with lining up the sale of Harshman's ball. He's only been an attorney since 2004, but has been a "huge" sports memorabilia collector for some time.

"We considered all kinds of things, timing being one of the issues," Edwards said. "We considered the marketing aspects and at the end of the day, felt that the timing was right for what Guernsey's had to offer."

Harshman has heard estimates that his ball with fetch at least $200,000.

Since forming Guernsey's 30 years ago, Arlan Ettinger has overseen two John F. Kennedy and Mickey Mantle and Elvis Presley memorabilia auctions. Guernsey's currently represents the Rosa Parks archives.

"There have been some things we've been excited about and the world didn't share our excitement," Ettinger said. "… Here, I think everybody agrees this item is of great significance. It's not the cure for cancer, but in the world of baseball it's a big deal. But what does that mean?"

Ettinger is optimistic the ball will be a hot item in a sale that will include the original blueprints for Yankee Stadium and the first World Series trophy to be publicly auctioned - the 1912 Boston Red Sox trophy.

"I think most people view the closing of a stadium as much more than the closing of a building," he said. "The names of Mantle and Gehring and Ruth and DiMaggio and the great teams they played against are gone now. This is the final glory, the final moment."

The pricing of memorable home run balls has been unpredictable since 1998. That year, the first home run ball in Yankee Stadium history - smacked by Babe Ruth - went for a then-record $126,000 to an anonymous bidder. A year later, Todd McFarlane, creator of the "Spawn" character, paid $3 million for Mark McGwire's single-season-record 70th home run ball. Last year, fashion designer Marc Ecko purchased Barry Bonds' career-record 756th home run ball for just more than $750,000.

Given the fact that McGwire's and Bonds' home run balls were purchased for publicity as much as pieces of memorabilia, it's nearly impossible to gauge how high the bidding on Harshman's ball will reach. It's also likely Bonds' career home run ball would have sold at a higher price if not for the alleged performance-enhancing drug-use controversy surrounding his achievement.

Ettinger said it's possible the person who holds the first home run ball at Yankee Stadium is eager to bookend his or her collection with the final home run ball.

He's also curious as to whether someone will want to keep the ball in Wyoming.

But that all appears to be lost on Harshman, who also serves as a Republican state legislator. The Wyoming native traveled to the Bronx with his brother, Mike, 55, and his sons, Josh, 11, and Jess, 9, to fulfill a lifelong dream of his World War II veteran father, who died six years ago.

"We talked about it as a family and we said we can keep it locked up in a safe deposit box and when I die the kids can fight over it, or maybe it can go to a good collector with a massive Yankees collection, and we can take the money and do some good with it," Harshman said.

Harshman wants to pay off a few debts, donate money to his church and charity and help pay for his children's college educations.

"The memory of it, that's all we went for," he said. "The memory of going to Yankee Stadium as a family. That's the key thing."

Contact managing editor Ron Gullberg at (307) 266-0560 or ron.gullberg@trib.com

BREAKOUT

Auction details

The final home run ball from Yankee Stadium, owned by Casper's Steve Harshman, will be auctioned off at a stadium memorabilia sale Saturday at New York's Madison Square Garden.

For more info:

www.guernseys.com

or call Guernsey's president Arlan Ettinger at (212) 794-2280

To bid online:

www.liveauctioneers.com

www.ebayliveauctions.com