DALLAS– Nearly a century after Babe Ruth called his pitch at the 1932 World Series, the jersey the New York Yankees slugger wore when he hit the home run into center field could sell for as much as $30 million at auction.
Heritage Auctions will offer the jersey on Saturday night in Dallas.
Ruth’s famous, controversial and often imitated “called shot” occurred when the Yankees and the Chicago Cubs faced off in Game 3 of the World Series at Wrigley Field in Chicago on October 1, 1932. In the fifth inning, Ruth made a pointing gesture while batting and then hit the home run against Cubs pitcher Charlie Root.
“It’s the most dramatic moment in World Series history and perhaps the most dramatic moment in baseball,” said Michael Gibbons, director emeritus and historian at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore.
The Yankees won the game 7-5 and defeated the Cubs the next day, winning the series.
That was Ruth’s last World Series, and the called shot was his last home run in a World Series, said Mike Provenzale, production manager for Heritage’s sports department.
“If you can associate an object like this with an important person and their most important moment, that’s what collectors are really looking for,” Provenzale said.
Heritage said Ruth gave the away jersey to one of his golf buddies in Florida around 1940 and it remained in that family for decades. The man’s daughter then sold it to a collector in the early 1990s. It was auctioned for $940,000 in 2005 and that buyer gave it to Heritage this year.
In 2019, one of Ruth’s 1928-30 away jerseys sold for $5.64 million at an auction at Yankee Stadium. That jersey was part of a collection of items Ruth’s family had put up for sale.
The called shot was an extraordinary moment for a man Gibbons called “the standard-bearer of all of Major League Baseball. Ruth popularized home runs and actually hit more home runs than entire teams,” Gibbons said.
“It thrilled the fans, but also the whole country,” he said.
“He was always uplifting, he was a very positive thing that could lift this country,” Gibbons said. “Then he tops it all off by firing his shot.”
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Associated Press video journalist Kendria LaFleur contributed to this report.
