A baseball player’s jersey, which he wore during his final home run of the series, is the most expensive sports item that has ever been sold at auction.
Heritage Auctions has achieved a record-breaking price of $24.1 million (£18.1 million) for the sale of the jersey that the great baseball player Babe Ruth wore when he “called the shot” and hit a home run during game 3 of the 1932 World Series.
As a result of the sale, the jersey has become the most expensive sports memorabilia that has ever been sold at auction. When it was previously put up for auction in 2005, the jersey in question, which belonged to the late New York Yankees star, brought in a total of $940,000. However, at the time, the item was only associated with the 1932 World Series, and it was not directly connected to the famous incident in which Ruth aimed his bat towards the outfield seats before hitting a home run into centre field off of Charlie Root, who was pitching for the Chicago Cubs.
Ruth was given the impression that he was indicating the location of the ball that he was going to hit in the near future.
There were other companies that had subsequently matched the jersey to the one that Ruth wore during the third game of the series at Wrigley Field, which resulted in an exponential growth in the value of the jersey. It was the last home run that Ruth ever hit in a World Series game.
Ruth took his retirement from baseball in 1935 and passed away in 1948, when he was 53 years old.
He is largely considered to be the greatest baseball player in the history of the game. Prior to being moved to the New York Yankees at the conclusion of the 1919 season, Ruth had won three World Series titles while playing for the Boston Red Sox. After that, he went on to win four more World Series titles with the Yankees.
A rare, pristine-condition Topps baseball card of Mickey Mantle from 1952 was sold at auction in 2022 for a total of $12.6 million, breaking the previous record for the highest price paid for a piece of sports memorabilia. Before that, the most expensive jersey that was ever sold at auction was a Michael Jordan jersey from the 1998 NBA Finals. In 2022, this garment sold for a total of £7.64 million, which is equivalent to $10 million.
When it was reported in May that the Ruth jersey will be auctioned off, Chris Ivy, who is the director of sports auctions at Heritage, anticipated that the item may sell for as much as $30 million.
“In essence, this is the Mona Lisa at its finest. “It is a very mythical moment that crosses over not only in the history of baseball but also in the history of the United States and the history of popular culture,” Ivy said in an interview with ESPN. One of the reasons why I believe it to be the most important piece of sports memorabilia in the entire world is because we are still discussing it after a century has passed. Every boat is raised to a higher level when the tide reaches that new record. I believe that a greater number of people are likely to take an interest in this hobby.
The identity of the person who purchased the Ruth jersey that broke the record has not been made public.