Baseball great Babe Ruth has earned another plaudit. This weekend, the jersey allegedly worn by the “King of Big Hitters” during his legendary “game-winning hit” in the 1932 World Series sold for $24.12 million at Heritage Auctions, making it the world’s most valuable sports memorabilia — breaking the records previously held by Michael Jordan’s 1998 NBA Finals jersey for the most expensive game-worn jersey ever and Mickey Mantle’s 1952 Topps Rockies card for the most expensive sports memorabilia ever. Both previous records were set in 2022. Heritage Auctions was behind Mantle’s hammer-smashing jersey.
“This is basically the Mona Lisa,” said Chris Ivey, the auction house’s director of sports auctions. ESPN“It’s a very legendary moment not only in baseball history, but in American history as well.”
The back of Ruth’s shirt, shown in the foreground of his photo. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
Ruth was the most important athlete of his era. He had a flair for showmanship that paved the way for successors like Muhammad Ali. The slugger hit 714 home runs between 1914 and 1935, a major league record that was not broken until 1974 by Henry “Hank” Aaron of the Atlanta Braves.
But the legend surrounding Ruth’s “slam dunk” in the 1932 World Series goes beyond baseball. That year’s championship was highly controversial. The Chicago Cubs mercilessly taunted Ruth as he walked to the plate during the third game of a four-game series. After he had two outs and two strikeouts, legend has it, Ruth looked at his opponents’ outfield, pointed to center field, and claimed he was about to hit a home run there—and then promptly did so.
The newspapers latched onto the “Ruth shot.” He confirmed the story several times. But the only tangible evidence that it all happened is a home video, filmed by someone in the audience, without sound. It’s not clear who Ruth was actually talking to, or what he said, before he delivered the knockout blow. But Ruth’s fame helped define that moment in history.
A 1933 illustration depicting Babe Ruth calling his strikeout in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. (Photo: Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images)
A Launches Heritage Auctions says Ruth kept the jersey from that game until the 1940s, when he gave it to a golfing buddy. That recipient then passed it on to their daughter, who sold it for a whopping $100,000 in the 1990s to “an early sports auctioneer.” That buyer then promptly sold the jersey to an anonymous collector, who returned it in 2005, when it was put up for sale as “attributed” only to “the required shot.” It sold for $940,000.
Heritage Auctions credits the astronomical price it fetched this weekend — reportedly after a six-hour bidding war — to several assessments that the jersey is in fact the one Ruth wore during the “knockout.” There has been debate about the veracity of that claim. dress repellentThe first authenticator contacted by the New Jersey-based sender in 2019 was unable to provide conclusive confirmation, but MeiGray and PSA made subsequent claims with a photo that matched the shirt’s button positions and embroidered lettering, as well as a small stain.
“It is clear from the strong participation in the auction and the record price achieved that savvy collectors have no doubt about what Ruth’s jersey is and what it represents,” Ivey said in a statement this week. According to Draw pageThe new owner is already accepting offers.
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