As Marcus Kline held Freddie Freeman’s sixth straight World Series game home run ball Tuesday night, the life-long New Yorker contemplated two scenarios.
He could keep Freeman’s historic ball and potentially enjoy a five-or-more-figure payday.
Or the 51-year-old could do what you do when you sit in the outfield at Yankee Stadium and hurl it back onto the field, winning over the fans in the process.
“I have this ball and there’s pure instinct and adrenaline like, ‘What are we going to do to get the crowd back in it?” Kline told The Post in a phone interview on Wednesday. “People are yelling, everyone is like anxious and all of a sudden I’m like — I was with my best buddy and business partner — if we threw this ball back we can get the crowd back into this, and there was a chant in the bleachers of ‘Throw it back! Throw it back!’
“You know the significance of the ball, but getting the Yankees back into this game was way more significant.”
Kline then passed the ball to said friend, Scott Zemachson, who hurled it back onto the field in a moment that Kline maintains galvanized the fans and the Yankees in the 11-4 Game 4 win to avoid elimination.
He doubled down on his belief that he made the right decision, financial considerations be damned.
“This is the turning point,” Kline, who works in finance, said of how his decision affected the game. “The bats came alive after that, the stadium was electric, the air was re-inflated. It was fire, it was nuts.
“There were some people who came up later and mentioned the significance of that ball, the history and I’m like, ‘No regrets.’ This is bigger than money.”
While another pair of Yankees fans made headlines Tuesday for their decisions when it came to how they handled their business when a ball came near them — two fans were banned from Game 5 for interfering with a Mookie Betts catch in Game 4 — Kline, who grew up on Long Island, ended up with a story that will last a lifetime when he originally didn’t even know if he would be in attendance.
Kline had been searching for seats for the game when a diehard Yankees fan friend offered him two front-row tickets in section 107 since he could not attend the game.
The game had barely started when Kline found Freeman’s fourth homer of the series and sixth straight dating to his 2021 World Series title with Atlanta came soaring into his section.
The ball appeared to careen off other fans before Kline managed to grab the ball with one hand off a bounce during what he described as a “melee” that had him boxing people out like in a basketball game.
“It’s almost like a football scrum,” Kline said. “Everyone is trying to pull the ball out of your hands — like you saw a few minutes later with Mookie (Betts). It felt like that, everyone grabbing for the ball. At that time, I didn’t realize the why and the significance but I held my ground and had the ball.”
And that’s when the decision presented itself.
Kline, who roots for both the Mets and Yankees, said Freeman’s homer felt like a “punch in the gut” and had zapped the energy out of the stadium.
In Game 3, the Yankees never recovered in a lifeless 4-2 loss.
“It’s like, ‘Here we go again,” he said. “We’re going to lose this World Series.”
It’s unknown how much Kline could have fetched in return for the ball, but Jorge Soler’s Game 6 home run in the Braves’ 2021 title-clinching win sold for $70,000.
Shohei Ohtani’s record homer that made him the first member of the 50-homer, 50-steal club sold for $4.392 million.
Freeman’s ball, while not a series clincher, carries the distinction of being historic since no other player in MLB history has homered in six straight games. Some close to Kline guessed the ball could be worth at least $1 million.
“Sheer instinct was it’s not about the money,” Kline said. “This is about our team, our city. You’re going to sit in the bleachers, you got to be part of the bleachers and that’s New York City energy at its finest.”
Follow The Post’s coverage of the Yankees in the postseason:
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- Rookie’s first World Series outing was just enough for the Yankees
- Heyman: Yankees finally showed some signs to believe in as Bombers keep title hopes alive
- Vaccaro: The Yankees were at rock bottom before Anthony Volpe’s heroics
Kline said he heard from about 30-40 people in the aftermath, with most supporting his decision.
But not everyone did.
His wife, Jackie Gordon Kline, told him that he won the lottery and threw it away.
“My wife said I threw away three years of college tuition,” said Kline, a father to 7-and 9-year-old girls. “But no regrets.”
He added: “This is what New Yorkers do for their team.”