A jersey belonging to US baseball legend Babe Ruth shattered the record for the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever auctioned on Sunday, fetching $24.1 million. The online auction for the New York Yankee’s jersey lasted several weeks, and it was expected to best the previous record: $12.6 million paid in August 2022 for a baseball card for Mickey Mantle.
Until 2022, no piece of sports memorabilia had ever broken the symbolic $10-million mark, but that year saw both the Mantle card and a jersey worn by basketball great Michael Jordan blow past the threshold.
The Bambino — one of Ruth’s monikers – wore the record-breaking jersey during a historic game against the Chicago Cubs in the 1932 World Series. Ruth was being heckled by the opposition, and he reportedly responded by pointing deep into the center-field stands, before pounding the next pitch exactly in that direction for a home run.
The Yankees went on to win the game and the World Series, the final championship win of Ruth’s career.
Years after his retirement, Ruth donated the jersey to a golf partner. It was subsequently sold three times, most recently in 2005 for $940,000.
The ball that Diego Maradona handled to score his infamous “Hand of God” goal for Argentina against England in the 1986 World Cup sold at auction on Wednesday for GBP 2 million ($2.4 million).
The white Adidas “Azteca” ball, which was owned by the Tunisian match referee Ali Bin Nasser, had been tipped to fetch up to GBP 3 million ($3.6 million) when it went under the hammer at UK-based Graham Budd Auctions. It comes six months after the jersey Maradona wore in the historic quarter-final in Mexico City sold at auction for nearly $9.3 million — more than twice the value predicted by Sotheby’s.
