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 Heritage Auctions early Sunday, breaking the record for the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever sold.
Multiple sources claim that the away uniform matches a photo from Game 3 at Wrigley Field, where Ruth hit two home runs, including the famous, then-disproved “called shot,” but the uniform has sparked pre-sale controversy after major photo-matching companies have been unable to “match” it despite multiple attempts in recent years.
The previous highest price paid for a piece of game-worn memorabilia was Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls jersey worn in Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals, which sold for $10.1 million in 2022. Meanwhile, the highest price paid for a sports collectible sold at auction was a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card, sold in the same year for $12.6 million.
This Ruth jersey was last sold at auction in 2005, where it sold for $940,000. The jersey was discovered around 1990 when a well-known collector purchased it from a Florida woman. Officially, the woman’s father received the jersey from Ruth after a round of golf. The collector later sold it to another private collector for $150,000.
In 1999, the jersey was listed again at Gray Flannel Auctions where it was auctioned off as Ruth’s 1930 road uniform. It sold for $284,000 and was eventually loaned to the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore. When the jersey returned to Gray Flannel in 2005, the company decided to do more research, which is how it was first advertised as the uniform Ruth wore on October 1, 1932, “Cold Shot” day.
At the time, the jersey’s identity was hotly debated, but the recent popularity of photo-matching as a verification method has further confirmed its connection to the “Cold Shot” game. Heritage’s athletic director, Chris Ivey, called the jersey “the most significant piece of American sports memorabilia ever to come up for auction.”
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“Baseball is king,” Ivey told The Athletic before the auction. “I would say it makes up 65 to 70 percent of the total sports collectibles market, and the Yankees probably make up half of that.”
Heritage said the auction ended late Saturday night after a bidding war that continued into the early hours of Sunday morning.
“It is an honor and a privilege to be associated with this great piece of American history and I am proud that it will become part of one of the greatest private collections in the world,” Ivey said in a statement after the auction. “The high participation rate at auction and the record price make it clear that astute collectors are in no doubt about what this Ruth jersey is and what it represents. The legend of Babe Ruth and the myth and mystery surrounding his ‘Called Shot’ are epitomized in this extraordinary artifact.”
(Babe Ruth jersey photo courtesy of Heritage Auctions)
