Babe Ruth 1932 World Series 'Called Shot' Jersey

The pointed finger at Wrigley

The Yankees came to Chicago for Game 3 of the 1932 World Series already up two games to none, having won 12-6 and 5-2 at Yankee Stadium. The Series was nasty before it started. The Cubs had picked up former Yankees shortstop Mark Koenig in 1932, and he hit .353 in 33 games for them, yet his Cubs teammates voted him only a half share of the postseason money. The Yankees called the Cubs cheapskates in the papers, and the Cubs bench answered by calling Ruth fat and washed up.

On October 1, in front of 49,986 people at Wrigley Field, Ruth hit a three-run home run off Charlie Root in the first inning. Lou Gehrig homered in the third. The Cubs clawed back with a run in the first, two in the third and one in the fourth, and when Ruth came up in the fifth the game was tied 4-4.

With two strikes on him, Ruth made a pointing gesture. Then he hit Root's next pitch to deep center field, a drive estimated at 440 to 490 feet. Gehrig followed with another home run that knocked Root out of the game. New York won 7-5, and the next day won 13-6 to complete a four-game sweep.

Among the crowd were Franklin D. Roosevelt, then the Democratic presidential candidate, and a 12-year-old John Paul Stevens, the future Supreme Court justice. It was Ruth's 10th and last World Series.

Did he call it?

Nobody has ever settled what the gesture meant. Two home movies of the at-bat exist: one shot by amateur filmmaker Matt Miller Kandle Sr., found in the 1970s, and a second by Harold Warp that surfaced in 1999. Both show Ruth pointing. Neither shows where, or why. He may have been promising a home run, or simply jawing at the Cubs dugout and the hecklers.

Root always denied that Ruth pointed to the stands before the pitch. Ruth himself, who loved a tall tale, did little to clear it up. Talking later with Chicago Daily News reporter John Carmichael, he said: 'I didn't exactly point to any one spot, like the flagpole. Anyway, I didn't mean to. I just sorta waved at the whole fence, but that was foolish enough.' And: 'All I wanted to do was give that thing a ride ... outta the park ... anywhere.'

The argument is the point. A home run that might have been a prophecy became the most retold at-bat in the sport, and anything Ruth wore that afternoon inherited the story.

From a safe deposit box to a record

The jersey's early path rests on family account rather than paperwork. Ruth retired in 1935 and became a fixture on Florida golf courses. According to the account given with the jersey, he gave this road shirt to a golfing friend in Florida; one report places the gift in the 1940s, another around 1940. In the early 1990s the friend's daughter, a woman in Port St. Lucie, Florida, found it in a safe deposit box and sold it to a collector.

One report says it went for six figures to an early sports auction pioneer and was later sold privately to another collector. In 2005 it was offered at auction and sold for $940,000 to a New Jersey man. At that point it was known as a 1932 World Series road jersey, but nothing tied it definitively to Game 3.

That changed with photo-matching. Over 2022 to 2024 several authenticators compared the jersey to photographs taken at Wrigley Field on October 1, 1932, and concluded it was the shirt Ruth wore in Game 3. The jersey came back to market in August 2024 for the first time in 19 years, opening at $7.5 million. After more than six hours of bidding it closed on August 25 at $24.12 million, including a 20 percent buyer's premium. The buyer was not named.

The price nearly doubled the previous record for any sports collectible, the $12.6 million paid for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card in August 2022.

How a shirt is matched to a moment

Photo-matching treats a flannel jersey like a fingerprint. Examiners compare the high-resolution photographs of a game with the garment itself, looking for features no other shirt would share. For this jersey they studied the stitching variations in the navy 'NEW YORK' lettering, the position of the letters relative to the buttons and placket, the placement of the No. 3 on the back, seam positions, button alignment, the manufacturer's tag, the strap used to keep the jersey tucked in during play, and the pattern of stains and fading on the gray flannel. Inside the collar, 'Ruth G.H' is embroidered in red thread.

The verdict was not unanimous. One authenticator matched it in 2022, another in April 2024 and a third in May 2024. A fourth firm reviewed it three times, in 2019, 2021 and 2022, and each time declined to call it a match, saying the characteristics were approximately the same but not enough for a definitive finding.

The market's view of photo-matching is clear from the numbers around this sale: a photo-matched Ruth bat sold for $1.85 million in 2023, while an unmatched Ruth bat had sold for $400,800 in 2018. As one authenticator put it, a letter from somebody's great-grandfather is nice, but at the end of the day it is not a court of law. The photographs are the closest thing to one.

The last October of the Babe

Ruth was 37 in the fall of 1932 and still one of the best hitters alive: .341 with 41 home runs, 137 RBI and a 1.150 OPS in 133 games. In the Series he hit .333 with two home runs and six RBI, though Gehrig outhit him at .529 with three home runs.

He never played in another World Series. He finished with 15 World Series home runs and 714 in the regular season, played his last game on May 30, 1935, entered the Hall of Fame in its first class in 1936 and died on August 16, 1948, at 53.

The jersey is the closest physical link to his most famous swing. In August 2024 that link made it the most expensive sports collectible ever sold at auction.

The numbers

Game 3, October 1, 1932

2 home runs (3-run homer in the 1st, solo 'called shot' in the 5th); Yankees 7, Cubs 5

Pitcher

Charlie Root, Chicago Cubs (losing pitcher)

Attendance

49,986 at Wrigley Field

1932 World Series

4 G, 15 AB, 6 R, 5 H, 2 HR, 6 RBI, .333

1932 regular season

133 G, .341 BA, 41 HR, 137 RBI, 1.150 OPS

Career

714 HR, 2,873 H, 2,214 RBI, .342 BA; 15 World Series home runs

Timeline

1. Feb 6, 1895

   George Herman Ruth is born in Baltimore.

2. Sep 28, 1932

   The Yankees win Game 1 of the World Series, 12-6, at Yankee Stadium.

3. Sep 29, 1932

   The Yankees win Game 2, 5-2.

4. Oct 1, 1932

   Wearing this road jersey, Ruth homers twice in Game 3 at Wrigley Field, including the 'called shot' in the fifth inning; the Yankees win 7-5.

5. Oct 2, 1932

   The Yankees win Game 4, 13-6, to sweep the Cubs.

6. May 30, 1935

   Ruth plays his last major league game.

7. 1936

   Ruth is elected to the Hall of Fame in its first class.

8. Aug 16, 1948

   Ruth dies in New York at 53.

9. 1970

   In the 1970s, Matt Miller Kandle Sr.'s home movie of the at-bat surfaces; only family and friends see it until the late 1980s.

10. 1990

    Early 1990s: the daughter of Ruth's Florida golfing friend finds the jersey in a safe deposit box and sells it to a collector.

11. 1999

    A second home movie of the at-bat, shot by Harold Warp, surfaces.

12. 2005

    The jersey sells at auction for $940,000, not yet tied to Game 3.

13. 2022

    An authenticator photo-matches the jersey to Game 3; another firm, after three reviews from 2019 to 2022, declines to call it a match.

14. Apr 2024

    A second authenticator approves the photo-match.

15. May 2024

    A third authenticator photo-matches the jersey.

16. Aug 25, 2024

    The jersey sells at auction for $24.12 million, a record for any sports collectible.

The world in 1932

• Feb 4, 1932

  The Winter Olympics open in Lake Placid, New York.

• Mar 1, 1932

  Charles Lindbergh Jr. is kidnapped from the family home near Hopewell, New Jersey.

• May 20, 1932

  Amelia Earhart begins her solo transatlantic flight, landing in Northern Ireland after 14 hours 54 minutes.

• Jul 8, 1932

  The Dow Jones Industrial Average hits its Depression low of 41.22.

• Jul 28, 1932

  Police fire on the Bonus Army of World War I veterans in Washington, D.C.

• Jul 30, 1932

  The Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles.

• Nov 8, 1932

  Franklin D. Roosevelt, who watched Game 3 from the stands, defeats Herbert Hoover in a landslide.

• Dec 27, 1932

  Radio City Music Hall opens in New York.

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 1932 World Series 'Called Shot' Jersey is number 2 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 (2 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The bad blood behind the called shot started over money: the Cubs voted former Yankee Mark Koenig only a half share of their World Series pool.
• A 12-year-old John Paul Stevens, later a Supreme Court justice, was in the stands for the at-bat, and so was Franklin D. Roosevelt.
• Lou Gehrig homered right after the called shot, and outhit Ruth in the Series, .529 to .333.
• Ruth's name is embroidered inside the collar in red thread as 'Ruth G.H.'
• One authentication firm reviewed the jersey three times and never called it a match, even as three others did.
• When it sold in 2005 for $940,000, nobody could prove it was the Game 3 jersey. Photographs later did, and the price rose about 25 times.
• The game took just 2 hours and 11 minutes.