A New York Yankees jersey said to be worn by Babe Ruth in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series sold for $24.12 million at a Heritage Auction on early Sunday morning, smashing the record for the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia in history.
The road jersey was photo matched by multiple sources to Game 3 at Wrigley Field — when Ruth hit two home runs, including the famed, and debunked, “called shot” — though one leading photomatching company was not able to “match” the jersey after multiple attempts in recent years, sparking a conversation before the sale.
The previous record price for a game-worn piece of memorabilia 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 most expensive price for any sports collectible sold at auction was $12.6 million for a Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle card that sold the same year.
This specific Ruth jersey was last sold at auction in 2005 when it went for $940,000. It was originally discovered around 1990 when a well-known collector purchased it from a woman in Florida. According to the official story, the woman’s father had received the jersey from Ruth after a round of golf. The collector sold the jersey to another private collector for $150,000.
In 1999, the jersey was consigned back to Grey Flannel Auctions and advertised for auction as a 1930 Ruth 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 Grey Flannel in 2005, the company elected to do additional research, which is how it first became advertised as the uniform Ruth was wearing on Oct. 1, 1932, the day of the “called shot.”
The attribution to Game 3 was heavily debated at the time, but the recent rise of photomatching as a method of verification gave more credence to its connection to the “called shot” game. Chris Ivy, the director of sports at Heritage, called the jersey “the most significant piece of American sports memorabilia ever offered at auction.”
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“Baseball is king,” Ivy told The Athletic in the lead-up to the auction. “I’d say baseball represents probably 65 to 70 percent of the total sports collectibles market, and I would say the Yankees represent probably half of that.”
According to Heritage, the auction concluded late Saturday night in a bidding war that continued into early 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 will now be part of one of the finest private collections in the world,” Ivy said in a statement after the sale. “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. The legend of Babe Ruth and the myth and mystery surrounding his ‘called shot’ are united in this one extraordinary artifact.”
(Photo of Babe Ruth’s jersey courtesy of Heritage Auctions)
