ST. LOUIS -- The sports agent brokering the sale of the ball that Barry Bonds hit for his 73rd homer believes it might fetch considerably less than the $3 million ball that Mark McGwire hit for his 70th just three years ago.

Saying Bonds' baseball either could be sold privately or auctioned, Michael Barnes estimates that the ball will sell for $1 million to $2 million -- appreciably lower than the $3,005,000 comic book creator Todd McFarlane paid for McGwire's No. 70 in 1998.

"I think the market is open to the fact that a baseball like this could bring a large sum -- seven figures even," Barnes said of the ball from Bonds' 73rd homer Oct. 7 at San Francisco's Pacific Bell Park. "How high is anybody's guess. It's so difficult to tell."

"It's such an interesting time to figure it all out," the agent from Festus outside St. Louis added. "If (McGwire's) No. 70 brought this, what's this ball worth?"

When it comes to marketing history, Barnes said there are unknowns. The chief one: the interest level in the Bonds ball just three years after McGwire shattered the single-season home run record that previously had stood for 37 years.

"It's such a unique situation, with (Bonds breaking) a record that's three years old rather than 37," Barnes said while believing the Bonds ball may have enduring value. "Just the way Bonds finished at 73; it's not like he beat the record by one. Everyone was saying this record won't be broken soon."

Barnes said the auction likely would be held early next year -- for sure, before next baseball season -- and perhaps simultaneously be held through a New York auction house and an Internet counterpart.

Still, there's some dispute over ownership of the Bonds ball.

Patrick Hayashi, 36, of Santa Clara, Calif., ended up with it, though fellow fan Alex Popov claims the ball belongs to him and wants it back, believing criminal charges should be filed if it's not returned.

Television footage shows Popov, a health-food restaurateur from Berkeley, gloved the ball but was mobbed by fans. Someone ripped the ball from his mitt, and it ended up in Hayashi's hands.

The San Francisco Giants have declined to get involved.

Barnes said he also represents Joseph Figone, the former groundskeeper at San Francisco's Candlestick Park who used a hand-held fishing net to scoop up Bonds' 500th career home run from the water just outside Pacific Bell Park in April.

Barnes said Figone has not yet indicated whether he plans to sell the ball, which the agent considers unique in that it may be the only milestone homer fished from the water and came during a year Bonds set the single-season home run mark.

Barnes said he has seen estimates that that ball could fetch $100,000 to $1 million, though "we're all trying to figure out how one compares to another."

"There's so little historical perspective," he said.

Barnes last year also brokered the sale of the ball from McGwire's 500th home run, hit in August 1999. Again on Wednesday, Barnes declined to identify the buyer or the price, citing a confidentiality agreement.