A 1920 Babe Ruth bat, Lou Gehrig’s 1924 contract and game-worn gear from Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris are slated to go on the auction block next month in an event that has a definite pinstripe feel to it.
The items are among dozens of Yankee-related items in the two-day Heritage Auctions Platinum catalog. Nearly 600 lots are on offer in the two-day sale, which is now underway and expected to generate over $10 million in results.
“The Yankees typically figure pretty heavily in all of our Platinum Night events,” said Chris Ivy, Director of Heritage Sports Collectibles, “but this might be the most significant single compilation we’ve presented to date.”
The celebrated “Murderer’s Row” tandem of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig is expected to vie for the auction’s top result, the former responsible for one of the most important bats in private hands (est. $400,000+), dating to the 1920 season during which he first donned pinstripes, and nearly doubled his own single-season home run record. Ruth returned this bat to the Hillerich & Bradsby factory for duplication, and it became part of the bat company’s traveling exhibition of elite lumber.
The bat joins a 
1937 Lou Gehrig jersey you read about here a couple of days ago. Gehrig’s 1924 Yankees contract is also expected to bring a steep six-figure price when the auction closes.
MEARS offers a high-probability photo match to Mantle’s 1954 road jersey (est. $400,000+), while his M&M Boys counterpart supplies one of the first worn as a Yankee, during Maris’ American League MVP season of 1960 (est. $40,000+).
Even the trading card offerings trend heavily toward the sport’s most successful franchise, most notably a wide range of Mantle’s 1952 Topps cards, including an ultra-rare autographed model. Ruth and Gehrig appear again in this challenging collecting subgenre, with signed examples of their 1928 Exhibit card.
The auction has options for those more interested in other teams, sports and disciplines and art aficionados will compete for an original study for Norman Rockwell’s famous cover painting for The Saturday Evening Post, Tough Call (est. $300,000+). The work was gifted to the painting’s main subject, umpire John “Beans” Reardon, and is consigned by his family.
Other auction highlights include:
- 1905 World Series Championship-Clinching Game Five Final Out Baseball(est. $30,000+)
- 1915 Cracker Jack Baseball Cards Advertising Sign(est. $100,000+)
- 1920 “Shoeless Joe” Jackson & Buck Weaver Signed Baseball(est. $200,000+)
- 1923 New York Yankees World Championship Pocket Watch(est. $30,000+)
- 1932 John McGraw Game-Worn New York Giants Uniform, MEARS A9(est. $150,000+)
- 1951 Eddie Gaedel Game-Used Bat, PSA/DNA GU 10(est. $40,000+)
- 1970 Ernie Banks Game-Worn Chicago Cubs Jersey, MEARS A10(est. $100,000+)
- 1961 Arnold Palmer British Open-Winning Driver with Palmer Letter(est. $80,000+)
- Late 1960’s Oscar Robertson Game-Worn Cincinnati Royals Jersey(est. $60,000+)
- 1986-88 Barry Sanders Game-Worn Oklahoma State Cowboys Jersey, MEARS A10(est. $30,000+)
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