There’s a new most valuable piece of sports memorabilia. After a final night bidding war that lasted until 5:30 AM Eastern time, the New York Yankees jersey Babe Ruth wore when he called his shot to deep center field in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series sold Sunday morning at Heritage Auctions for $24,120,000 to establish a new record.
The buyer was an unidentified private collector.
The jersey broke the old record for any sports memorabilia item or card set by the sale of a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card graded Mint+ 9.5 by SGC that sold for $12.6 million at Heritage in August 2022. The previous record for a Ruth jersey was $5.6 million, paid for a circa 1928-1930 model sold through Hunt Auctions during a special Ruth oriented sale conducted at Yankee Stadium in 2019.
Heritage had estimated the jersey would sell for $30 million or more. While it didn’t get there, it gave another jolt of publicity to the game-worn jersey market.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to work with this incredible piece of American history, and I am proud that it will now be part of one of the finest private collections in the world,” Heritage Director of Sports Chris Ivy remarked. “It is clear by the strong auction participation and record price achieved that astute collectors have no doubt as to what this Ruth jersey is and what it represents. The legend of Babe Ruth and the myth and mystery surrounding his ‘called shot’ are united in this one extraordinary artifact.”
Ruth himself labeled the Game 3 homer against the Cubs his “most famous” but the debate about what actually led to the famous homer at Wrigley Field that day has remained a bit of a mystery. The Cubs were razzing Ruth, who gestured back at them from the plate with two fingers before sending Charlie Root’s pitch over the centerfield fence with two strikes on him.
Lou Gehrig made it back-to-back blasts, chasing Root from the game and sending the Yankees onto a 3-0 lead in the series after a 7-5 win. They’d finish Chicago off the following afternoon. Last month, Heritage took the jersey back to Wrigley Field where it was on display for a brief time.
Ruth apparently wound up taking the jersey home at some point, holding onto it before eventually gifting it to a golfing friend in Florida in the 1940s, long before memorabilia had much monetary value. In 2005, it was consigned to Grey Flannel Auctions by the daughter of that golfing buddy. It sold then for $944,000 after reviews of photographs seemed to indicate a probably match to the 1932 World Series. Since then, extensive research and photomatching efforts enabled Heritage to confidently tout it as such.
Authenticators MeiGray and MEARS were recently tasked with attempting to match the jersey to images of Ruth wearing it. The placement of buttons on the jersey, stains and other markings on it were seen to match those photos.
The match used two photos from Getty Images and a third from The Chicago Daily News showing Ruth, Lou Gehrig and manager Joe McCarthy in the Wrigley Field dugout on Oct. 1, 1932.
Those photos were taken before and after that legendary game, where Ruth hit two home runs – including his “Called Shot,” the final homer Ruth hit in World Series play.
It was one of multiple items that sold for over $1 million in what will become the richest auction in the history of sports collectibles when results of the three-night event are tallied.
Jackson, Jackie and Mickey
In all, six items sold for more than $1 million and 49 more tallied over $100,000, making it the richest sports memorabilia auction in history.
A bat attributed to use by Joe Jackson early in his career, rated GU10 by PSA/DNA soared to just over $2 million, a record for any bat sold at public auction. Another bat signed and personalized by Babe Ruth dating to the 1921 season netted $885,000.
A PSA 8 copy of Mickey Mantle’s iconic 1952 Topps baseball card crossed the seven-figure plateau, selling for nearly $1.4 million.
On the first night of the three part auction that closed late Friday, a trio of 1950s game-worn jerseys from baseball icons brought in over $10 million combined. A 1951 Jackie Robinson jersey, paired with a pair of the pioneering infielder’s 1950 pants, soared to just over $5.5 million.
A 1952-53 Mickey Mantle jersey netted $3 million and a Hank Aaron rookie jersey with stitching from his original number 5 still visible, netted $2.1 million, a record for any Aaron jersey.
Robinson items were plenty. An autographed bat dating to 1955 found a buyer at $588,000 while a lower grade ticket to his historic regular season debut in April 1947 netted $324,000 and an autographed copy of his 1949 Bowman rookie card (PSA 5/10) ended at $384,000.
Vintage card highlights included a PSA 9 T206 Ty Cobb ‘Bat Off Shoulder’ ($870,000), a PSA 9 1954 Topps Aaron rookie card ($384,000), a signed 1933 Goudey Ruth #181 ($324,000), a 1903 E107 Breisch-Williams Honus Wagner graded SGC 1.5 ($312,000), an SGC 1 Breisch-Williams Christy Mathewson ($210,000) and a 1962 Topps Football unopened wax box of 24 packs ($180,000).
Modern card listings were topped by a rare 2003-04 Upper Deck Exquisite Kobe Bryant Numbered Pieces autograph card graded PSA 7/8 ($408,000).
Among the other memorabilia that brought six-figure prices: a 1960-61 Wilt Chamberlain Game Worn Philadelphia Warriors jersey ($504,000), a 1998 Michael Jordan game-worn “Last Dance” season jersey ($360,000), a 1969 Willie Mays road jersey matched to that year’s All-Star Game ($312,000), a complete run of Super Bowl tickets from the collection of one of three men who’ve been to every game since 1967 ($138,000), Emmitt Smith’s Super Bowl XXX game-worn helmet ($108,000) and the ball hit by Barry Bonds to tie Aaron atop the all-time home run list at 755 ($102,000).
The third and final segment of the auction was scheduled to close Sunday night with lower cost items scheduled to close.
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