The uniform Don Larsen was wearing when he pitched baseball’s only World Series perfect game sold at auction Wednesday night for $756,000.
The jersey and pants drew 22 bids in a sale conducted by Steiner Sports. Bidding began on the October 8 anniversary of the day Larsen shut down the Brooklyn Dodgers. The final bid was $630,000 and Steiner tacked on a 20% buyer’s premium. The buyer was New York memorabilia dealer Pete Siegel, who plans to put it on display.
“Very happy for Don, honored to be a part of this,” tweeted CEO Brandon Steiner after the auction, which also included the sale of hundreds of items consigned by Bob Knight.
The former Indiana coach’s 1976 NCAA Championship ring brought $$209,940.
Despite its historic nature, the Larsen uniform auction fell well short of the record for a piece of sports memorabilia set by SCP Auctions earlier this year when it sold the earliest known Babe Ruth big league shirt for $4.4 million.
Larsen had loaned the uniform to the San Diego Hall of Champions in the early 1960s and it remained on display there until he decided to sell it to finance the college education of his grandchildren.
Steiner brought Larsen to the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore last summer and had the uniform on display during the show.
The jersey worn by catcher Berra during the perfect game was sold at auction in 2010 for $565,000 and is currently on loan to the Yogi Berra Museum by its owner, noted collector Dr. Richard Angrist of New Jersey.
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