A New York Yankees jersey believed to have been worn by Babe Ruth in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series sold for $24.12 million at a Heritage auction early Sunday morning, breaking the record for the most expensive sports memorabilia in history.
The road jersey was photographed by multiple sources during Game 3 at Wrigley Field — when Ruth hit two home runs, including the famous and debunked “home run” — though a major photomatching company was unable to “match” the jersey after several attempts in recent years, sparking a pre-sale conversation.
The previous record price for a game-worn collectible was a Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls jersey from Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals, which sold for $10.1 million in 2022, while the highest price for a sports collectible sold at auction was $12.6 million for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card sold that same year.
This Ruth jersey was last sold at auction in 2005 for $940,000. It was discovered around 1990, when a well-known collector bought it from a woman in Florida. According to the official story, the woman’s father had received the jersey from Ruth after a golf game. The collector sold the jersey to another private collector for $150,000.
In 1999, the jersey was donated to Grey Flannel Auctions and advertised for auction as Ruth’s 1930 uniform. It sold for $284,000 and was eventually loaned to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore. When the jersey returned to Grey Flannel in 2005, the company chose to do additional research, which is why it was first advertised as the uniform Ruth wore on October 1, 1932, the day of the “gunshot.”
The jersey’s attribution to Game 3 was the subject of much debate at the time, but the recent rise of photomatching as a method of verification has lent further credence to its connection to the “called shot” game. Chris Ivy, Heritage’s director of sports, called the jersey “the most important American sports memorabilia ever offered at auction.”
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“Baseball is king,” Ivy said The Athletic “I would say baseball probably represents 65 to 70 percent of the total sports collectibles market, and I would say the Yankees probably represent half of that.”
According to Heritage, the auction ended late Saturday night in a bidding war that continued into the early hours of Sunday morning.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to work with this incredible piece of American history, and I am proud that it is now part of one of the finest private collections in the world,” Ivy said in a statement after the sale. “It is clear from the strong turnout and record-breaking price that has been achieved that discerning collectors have no doubt about what this Ruth jersey is and what it represents. The legend of Babe Ruth and the myth and mystery surrounding his ‘shot’ are brought together in this extraordinary artifact.”
(Photo of Babe Ruth jersey courtesy of Heritage Auctions)
