PHOTO-MATCHED TO BASEBALL’S MOST FAMOUS MOMENT, THE JERSEY HELPED LEAD HERITAGE’S SUMMER PLATINUM NIGHT SPORTS AUCTION TO A RECORD-SHATTERING $61.9 MILLION
By Robert Wilonsky
Almost 90 years after he retired from baseball, Babe Ruth continues to make history. After a bidding war that lasted more than six hours, the New York Yankees jersey Ruth wore when he called his shot to deep center field in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series sold last month at Heritage Auctions for $24,120,000 to become the world’s most valuable sports collectible.
Ruth knocked fellow Yankees legend Mickey Mantle out of the record books, where he’d been since August 2022. That’s when Heritage sold a high-grade example of Mantle’s iconic 1952 Topps card for $12.6 million.
Ruth’s “called shot” jersey – which Heritage’s Director of Sports, Chris Ivy, calls “the most significant piece of American sports memorabilia ever offered at auction” – was the centerpiece of Heritage’s August 23-25 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction. The event’s three-day total of $61,906,602 shattered the all-time record for a sports auction.
The New York Yankees jersey Babe Ruth wore when he called his shot in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series became the world’s most valuable piece of sports memorabilia when it realized $24,120,000 during Heritage’s August 23-25 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction.
“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,” Ivy says. “The legend of Babe Ruth and the myth and mystery surrounding his ‘called shot’ are united in this one extraordinary artifact.”
Ruth’s “called shot,” as it’s been known ever since his swing met Cubs pitcher Charlie Root’s pitch that first day of October in Chicago, “has been argued about and debunked and reconsidered and investigated for almost a century,” Joe Posnanski wrote in 2023’s bestselling Why We Love Baseball. That was the moment in the fifth inning when Ruth gestured toward something or someone – perhaps the Chicago Cubs’ dugout, Root or the center field flagpole – then smashed a ball farther than anyone had ever before hit a baseball at Wrigley Field.
That home run, which came on a two-strike count, has been depicted in paintings, exaggerated in movies and parroted by anyone who’s ever played beer-league ball on a rec-league field.
After his retirement, Ruth held on to the jersey he wore that day, eventually gifting it to a golfing friend in Florida in the 1940s. It remained with that lucky recipient’s daughter until the 1990s, when an early sports auction pioneer traveled to Florida to buy the jersey for a six-figure sum. The jersey – which was recently photo-matched by several third parties, including Professional Sports Authenticator and MeiGray Authenticated – was immediately sold privately to an unknown collector, who kept it in his collection until it was consigned to auction in 2005, when it sold for $940,000. It remained in a private collection before heading to Heritage.
This 1951 Jackie Robinson game-worn Brooklyn Dodgers jersey, accompanied by a pair of Robinson’s 1950 pants, sold for $5,520,000, making it the world’s most valuable Jackie Robinson jersey.
Babe Ruth wasn’t the only history-maker in Heritage’s August auction, however.
Jackie Robinson also emerged as one of the auction’s headliners when the Brooklyn Dodgers jersey he wore during the 1951 season realized $5.52 million, rendering it the most valuable No. 42 in the world. The jersey, from Robinson’s .338 season and adorned with the 75th National League Anniversary patch, was accompanied by a pair of 1950 pants, which makes this a complete uniform from the complete player who forever changed the game.
The change began at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, when Robinson stepped onto the field and shattered Major League Baseball’s color barrier. A ticket stub from that moment – one of only 12 in PSA’s population report, with just four graded higher – has become regarded as one of baseball’s finest mementos, a tangible keepsake from the day Robinson forever changed the game. Hence, the reason it shattered pre-auction expectations, realizing $324,000.
Photo-matched to the 1952 and 1953 World Series, this Mickey Mantle game-worn New York Yankees jersey brought $3 million in Heritage’s August auction.
As always, Mickey Mantle racked up numerous hits throughout the auction, beginning with his game-worn Yankees jersey photo-matched to Game 7 of the 1952 World Series and the following year’s championship, when The Mick belted a grand slam en route to the Yanks’ victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers. This jersey also carries an extraordinary backstory: In 1955, the Yankees sent a crate of jerseys and equipment to an orphanage in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Among the lot was Mantle’s No. 7 jersey, which a Mantle fan bought from a friend for $2.50.
On August 23, it sold for $3 million.
This 1954 Hank Aaron game-worn and signed Milwaukee Braves rookie jersey, which sold for $2,100,000, is now the world’s most valuable Aaron jersey.
Hank Aaron joined Ruth and Robinson among this event’s record-setters when a signed Milwaukee Braves zip-up worn during his 1954 rookie season realized $2.1 million. That smashed the previous record for a Hammerin’ Hank jersey set in August 2021, when Heritage sold his Atlanta Braves button-down photo-matched to May 17, 1970 – the day Aaron recorded his 3,000th career hit – for $540,000. The ’54 jersey in this auction is remarkable: His famous 44 is stitched into the back, where you can still see faintly visible vestiges of the original No. 5 Aaron wore during his first steps to the plate.
The world’s most valuable baseball bat: the 1911 ‘Shoeless Joe’ Jackson game-used and side-written bat that sold for $2,010,000 in Heritage’s August auction
Another record-setter hailed from another legend’s rookie season: the signature, side-written model Hillerich & Bradsby used by “Shoeless” Joe Jackson in 1911. John Taube, the world’s leading authority on bat authentication, notes that this is “the only Joe Jackson bat in existence that is factory documented as being game used by Jackson during his Major League career” – not to mention his rookie season with the Cleveland Naps. That year, Jackson hit .408, a single-season record for a rookie that still stands today.
This bat is now the most valuable in the world, having realized $2,010,000. The previous record-holder was a slab of Babe Ruth’s lumber from the 1921 season, which sold for $1.85 million last year.
“The incredible results for this auction represent a new benchmark for our industry and the continued growth of sports collectibles on the world stage as a reliable, engaging and fun alternative asset class,” Ivy says. “No one in our world has ever seen anything like this, from client participation and media engagement to the dozens of new world-record results established.”
ROBERT WILONSKY is a staff writer at Intelligent Collector.