Babe Ruth 1923 First-Home-Run-at-Yankee-Stadium Bat

A promise made before the first pitch

Before Yankee Stadium ever hosted a game, its most famous bat already had a destination. Ruth's agent, Christy Walsh, who had once worked for the Los Angeles Evening Herald, suggested that the slugger give the newspaper a bat to award as the top prize in a high school home run contest. Ruth agreed to donate the bat he used to hit his first home run in the new park to the Los Angeles schoolboy who hit the most home runs that season.

Ruth knew what he wanted from the day. Reporters quoted him saying, shortly before the opener, 'I'd give a year of my life if I can hit a home run in the first game.' Accounts of the exact wording differ slightly, but every version carries the same wish.

The bat itself is a solid ash Louisville Slugger, 36 inches long. Its weight is reported differently: one wire report from the 2004 sale gives 46 ounces, while a national newspaper account of the same sale gives 45. Ruth later signed and inscribed the barrel: 'To the Boy Home Run King of Los Angeles, "Babe" Ruth, N.Y. May 7, 1923.' A brass plate honoring Orsatti was later attached.

The House That Ruth Built

The Yankees had shared the Polo Grounds in Manhattan with the New York Giants since 1913, and relations between the clubs were strained. After Ruth arrived in 1920 the Yankees outdrew their landlords, and owners Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast Huston decided to build their own park on a former lumberyard in the Bronx, within sight of the Polo Grounds across the Harlem River. Ground was broken on May 5, 1922. The stadium, designed by Osborn Engineering and built by White Construction, was the first facility in North America with three tiers. Its cost is given as about $2.4 million in one history and $2.5 million in another.

It opened on Wednesday, April 18, 1923, against the Boston Red Sox, Ruth's former team. John Philip Sousa led a band in 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' Ruth was handed a case holding an oversized ceremonial bat, and Governor Al Smith threw out the first pitch. The official attendance was 74,200, then the largest crowd in baseball history; one account says another 25,000 were turned away at the gates.

The game was scoreless until the bottom of the third. With two on and two out, Ruth drove a pitch from Howard Ehmke into the right field bleachers for three runs. The Yankees won 4-1 behind Bob Shawkey, and the game took 2 hours 5 minutes. Ruth walked twice and finished with one hit, one run and three RBI. Sportswriter Fred Lieb of the New York Evening Telegram dubbed the park 'The House That Ruth Built,' and Heywood Broun summed it up: 'The Yankees beat the Red Sox. Babe Ruth busted the ball.'

The rest of 1923 belonged to Ruth too. He hit .393 with 41 home runs, 130 RBI and 170 walks, won the American League MVP award, and in October the Yankees beat the Giants four games to two for their first World Series title, in the stadium's first season. Ruth hit three home runs in that Series.

From a schoolboy to a bed in a nurse's home

The contest winner was Victor Orsatti, a power hitter from Manual Arts High School. On June 7, 1923, the Herald and Los Angeles Mayor George Cryer presented him with the bat. Ruth sent a telegram: 'Glad to hear you win Evening Herald home run bat but sorry there was not a trophy for all the boys. In my home run experience I have found a fellow frequently fails when he tries hardest therefore send my regards to the ones who tried and congratulation to you for winning.'

Orsatti grew up to be a well-known Hollywood talent agent and producer whose clients included Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Edward G. Robinson and Jean Harlow. He kept the bat for 61 years. When he died in Newport Beach in 1984, he left it and his other memorabilia to his private nurse and caretaker, Marcia Napoli-Tejada.

She kept the bat under her bed for nearly 18 years, thinking it a commemorative souvenir with little monetary value, until friends persuaded her to have experts examine it. In 2002 she contacted a Southern California memorabilia dealer, entered into what she called a 'financial partnership,' and the bat was prepared for sale. It made its public debut at the National Sports Collectors Convention and was exhibited in New York from November 27 to December 1, 2004.

One minute, $1.265 million

On December 2, 2004, the bat was the headline lot of a New York auction of more than 200 baseball items. Bidding opened at $400,000, slowed near $1 million, and lasted about a minute. The hammer fell at $1.1 million; with the 15% buyer's premium, the price was $1,265,000.

The winning bidder was Doug Allen, president of a Chicago sports auction house, acting for an unnamed East Coast collector. 'It was a blur,' Allen said. He added that his client was 'thrilled to be part of such an important part of baseball history,' and that the bat would join 'the most comprehensive and valuable New York Yankees and Babe Ruth collection known.' Allen said his side had been prepared to pay considerably more.

The price was then the highest ever paid at auction for a baseball bat. Contemporary reports placed it among only three sports items to pass $1 million at the time, alongside Mark McGwire's 70th home run ball, which brought more than $3 million in 1999, and a T206 Honus Wagner card graded PSA 8. The whole sale totaled $4,687,486. Napoli-Tejada said she would use part of her share to fund a baseball program for orphans in Mexico, noting that Ruth himself had grown up in a home for boys.

What makes this bat unique

What separates this bat is the documented chain from a specific swing to a specific owner: Ruth's dated inscription naming the 'Boy Home Run King of Los Angeles,' the June 7, 1923, newspaper presentation to Orsatti, Ruth's telegram, and the clippings that accompanied the bat through its 2004 sale. The dealer who brought it to market called its 'authenticity, provenance, and condition' beyond reproach and its Ruth signature the finest he had seen on a bat.

The provenance is also unusually short. From 1923 to 2004 the bat had only two private owners, Orsatti and his caretaker, and it surfaced only once, at the 2004 sale. No later public sale has been reported in the sources reviewed here.

First home run, last appearance

Ruth came back to the stadium for the last time on June 13, 1948, for its 25th anniversary, weakened by cancer. He walked to the microphone using a bat as a cane, told the crowd of 49,647 how proud he was to have hit the first home run there, and added, 'Lord knows who'll hit the last.' He died two months later.

The original Yankee Stadium played its final game on September 21, 2008, and was demolished between 2009 and 2010; its site became a public park. In 2010 the bat's story was featured on a national television program about accidental fortunes, broadcast on April 18, the anniversary of the home run.

The numbers

April 18, 1923 vs. Boston

2 AB, 1 R, 1 H, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 2 BB. Yankees won 4-1; attendance 74,200; time 2:05.

The home run

Bottom of the 3rd, two on, two out, off Howard Ehmke, into the right field bleachers

1923 season

152 G, 522 AB, 151 R, 205 H, 45 2B, 13 3B, 41 HR, 130 RBI, 17 SB, 170 BB, .393 BA, .545 OBP, .764 SLG. AL MVP.

1923 World Series vs. Giants

6 G, 19 AB, 8 R, 7 H, 1 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 3 RBI, 8 BB, .368 BA, 1.000 SLG. Yankees won 4-2.

Career (22 seasons)

2,873 H, 714 HR, 2,214 RBI, 2,062 BB, .342 BA, .474 OBP, .690 SLG

Timeline

1. May 5, 1922

   Ground is broken for Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

2. Apr 18, 1923

   Ruth hits the first home run in Yankee Stadium history, a three-run shot off Howard Ehmke, with this bat.

3. May 7, 1923

   The date Ruth writes in his inscription to 'the Boy Home Run King of Los Angeles.'

4. Jun 7, 1923

   The Los Angeles Evening Herald and Mayor George Cryer present the bat to contest winner Victor Orsatti.

5. Oct 15, 1923

   The Yankees beat the Giants to win their first World Series, in the stadium's first season.

6. Jun 13, 1948

   Ruth makes his last appearance at Yankee Stadium, leaning on a bat as a cane.

7. 1984

   Orsatti dies in Newport Beach and leaves the bat to his caretaker, Marcia Napoli-Tejada.

8. 2002

   Napoli-Tejada contacts a Southern California memorabilia dealer about the bat.

9. 2004

   The bat makes its public debut at the National Sports Collectors Convention.

10. Nov 27, 2004

    A five-day public exhibition of the bat and the rest of the sale begins in New York.

11. Dec 2, 2004

    The bat sells at auction in New York for $1,265,000, a record for a baseball bat.

12. Sep 21, 2008

    The original Yankee Stadium hosts its final game.

13. Apr 18, 2010

    The bat's story is featured on a national television program, 87 years to the day after the home run.

The world in 1923

• Mar 2, 1923

  The first issue of Time magazine is published.

• Apr 4, 1923

  Warner Bros. is formally incorporated.

• Apr 6, 1923

  Louis Armstrong makes his first recording, 'Chimes Blues,' with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.

• Jul 13, 1923

  The Hollywood sign, then reading 'Hollywoodland,' is inaugurated.

• Aug 2, 1923

  Calvin Coolidge becomes president on the death of Warren G. Harding.

• Oct 16, 1923

  Roy and Walt Disney found the company that becomes The Walt Disney Company.

• Dec 4, 1923

  The Cotton Club opens in Harlem.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Babe Ruth 1923 First-Home-Run-at-Yankee-Stadium Bat is number 60 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (59 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Ruth agreed to give away the bat from his first home run in the new stadium before he had hit it.
• The schoolboy who won the bat, Victor Orsatti, became a Hollywood agent whose clients included Judy Garland and Jean Harlow.
• Orsatti's caretaker kept the bat under her bed for nearly 18 years, thinking it was a souvenir of little value.
• Bidding for the bat in 2004 lasted about a minute.
• Ruth walked twice in the opening game; the home run was his only hit that day.
• On his last visit to Yankee Stadium in 1948, Ruth used a bat as a cane.
• Sportswriter Fred Lieb is credited with naming the park 'The House That Ruth Built' upon its opening.