(Dallas) The sweater Babe Ruth wore when he homered in the 1932 World Series sold at auction for more than $24 million Sunday.
Heritage Auctions said the baseball legend’s New York Yankees jersey sold for a record $24.12 million after a more than six-hour auction in Dallas. The buyer requested anonymity, Heritage said.
The sale surpassed the record set by a 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie card, which Heritage Auctions sold for $12.6 million in 2022.
“The legend of Babe Ruth and the myth and mystery surrounding when he points to predict his home run make his jersey a unique collectible,” said Heritage Auctions Sports Director Chris Ivy.
He added that it was “the most significant American sports collectible ever offered at auction.”
PHOTO LM OTERO, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
The jersey worn by Babe Ruth in 1932, during a World Series game.
Ruth’s gesture, which has long been the subject of debate and has been often imitated, was made before he hit a home run in Game 3 of the World Series against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago on March 1.er October 1932. In the fifth inning, in the heat of the moment, Ruth pointed to the outfield with his bat, then slammed Charlie Root’s throw over the center-field fence.
“This is the most dramatic moment in World Series history and perhaps in the history of all baseball,” said Michael Gibbons, director emeritus and historian at the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore.
The Yankees won the game 7-5 and completed the sweep of the Cubs the next day.
Heritage said Ruth gave the jersey to one of his golf partners in Florida in the 1940s and it remained in his family for decades. The man’s daughter sold the jersey to a collector in the early 1990s. It sold at auction in 2005 for $940,000 and remained in a private collection until it was consigned to Heritage this year.