Fan has no regrets about returning ball

ST. LOUIS -- Dave Huyette was counting his blessings rather than the riches he might have received had greed overtaken sportsmanship as hordes of other St. Louis Cardinals fans turned out Sunday to swaddle themselves in their team's improbable World Series title,

Huyette briefly held history in his hands from a World Series game considered one for the ages just three days earlier, winning the dash to a walkoff, 11th-inning home run ball David Freese plunked onto a grassy knoll behind Busch Stadium's center-field fence, breaking a 9-9 tie and propelling the Cardinals into the decisive Game 7 they won the next night.

The Illinois radiologist with a 5-year-old son could have cashed in, given that iconic home run balls have fetched tens -- at times hundreds -- of thousands of dollars on the memorabilia market. But Huyette would have none of that, knowing that giving the ball to Freese "was the honorable thing to do."

On Sunday, there were no regrets.

"I'm not financially needy, and I knew I didn't want any money," Huyette, 39, said by telephone from his home in Maryville, Ill., on Sunday, figuring hawking the ball stood to make him "an enemy in my town."

Freese -- named the MVP of the World Series and the NL championship series before it -- rewarded Huyette after Thursday night's game with an autographed bat, a baseball signed by the Cardinals and a picture with him. An auto-parts company threw in tickets for Huyette to the series' finale.

Valuable spoils, all of them partly because Huyette -- an Iowa native attending his first World Series game -- had positioned himself for that rare moment when luck and history collide, even if initially he wasn't planning to be there.

Huyette had shelled out nearly $1,100 for tickets to Game 6, which he planned to attend with Chicago Cubs-loving pal Jeremy Reiland on Wednesday, only to see it postponed for a day to Thursday because rain loomed in St. Louis. Huyette mulled selling the tickets, voicing to Reiland indifference about going. Reiland talked him out of it.

From their right-centerfield seats on Thursday night, Huyette and Reiland -- two in a record crowd of 47,325 -- had an inkling a home run ball would come their way, and for each of the last four innings they waited for it

Huyette even texted people to watch for them on television going after a home run ball.