More air than Jordan: The Sultan of Swat is still breaking records

This was not just another auction for sports memorabilia. This was nothing less than historically, extraordinary.

See, in the early hours of last Sunday morning in the USA, the New York Yankees jersey worn by the great baseballer Babe Ruth in the iconic Game 3 of the 1932 World Series sold for – dot three, carry one, multiply by gazillions US$24.12 million (A$35.4m) at a Heritage Auction which more than DOUBLED the previous record for a game-worn piece of memorabilia.

The 1932 Babe Ruth game-worn New York Yankees World Series “Called Shot” jerseyCredit: AP

The latter was Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls jersey from Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals, which in 2022 sold for US$10.1 million.

Conjure with that for a moment? Somehow, the jersey of the baseballer from nigh on a hundred years ago buys two jerseys and a bitty of the basketballer from three decades ago – the one whose sporting fame we thought transcended all.

How can that be? In a world where sporting memory can be so short that even staggering events can be more or less forgotten a year later, somehow that Babe Ruth story only gets bigger in the public mind. When the Ruth jersey was last sold two decades ago, it went for $940,000, but its value has increased in rough synchronicity with the passage of the years, and is now more than 25 times more valuable.

Must have been some story, yes?

Babe Ruth remains a man of great fanfare.Credit: AP

Yes, and even though I’ve told it before, the yarn is worth retelling.

See, Babe Ruth was the New York Yankee to beat them all, the one who captured the imagination of the American public like no one before him, and arguably no one since, though you’d think at least Muhammad Ali could come close to looking him in the eye.

He was baseball’s answer to Bradman, from roughly the same era, and his stats – like the Don’s – are still a class above. He appeared in no fewer than ten World Series, once hit 60 home runs in a season (1927), and hit 714 homers overall.

But the truth of Ruth is that it wasn’t just the numbers that defined him. It was the swagger. The panache. The self-belief. The fact he was the first to break free from the Sunday School rectitude of Middle America and instead of invariably talking himself down, he Ruthlessly talked himself up. He was the original model for one who not only talked the talk but also walked the walk, usually a leisurely stroll, acknowledging the cheers from the far pavilions whence the ball went after he had hit yet another home run.

‘The Yankees win, the legend of Babe Ruth deepens further and the mob would never forget him.’

The Babe was so famous, such a beloved legend, that when he married his sweetheart, a showgirl by the name of Claire – the only way to escape the crowds was to do it at 5am on June 23, 1929, and even then a thousand fans turned up outside the church on Long Island. Typically, the Babe told the well-wishers that that very afternoon at Yankee Stadium, he would hit a home run in honour of his bride – and did so!

And yet?

And yet, even lions must eventually become just big pussycats when age sets in, and by October 1932 – at which point he is more than two decades into his career – the Babe is starting to fade and in a World Series match between the Yankees and the Chicago Cubs the parochial home-town Chicago crowd at the famed Wrigley Field can smell blood.

The scores are locked 4-4 when the Colossus of Clout, the Sultan of Swat, the King of Swing, shapes up to the pitcher, which unleashes jeering and sneering from the local mob.

Too old!

Too fat!

Too slow!

The Babe doesn’t blink. Not even when he misses the first pitch by a mile and the hoots rise to a crescendo.

And look now! What’s he doing?

Babe Ruth launches one of his 714 home runs.Credit: AP

Babe Ruth is raising a single admonitory finger, indicating they shouldn’t get too excited, yet, because it is still only strike one.

Charlie Root, the pitcher, throws again.

Stteeeeee-rike TWO!

More insults are hurled, including from the Chicago players, being untowardly disrespectful to the ageing American icon.

This time Babe holds up two fingers.

With two wide pitches to follow, the whole game is in the balance, as the crowd goes berko in bloodlust for his downfall.

Now, now the Babe makes his move.

The clippings tell the story: “With cold disdain, Babe Ruth pointed to a flagpole on the far edge of the ground. Everybody knew his meaning.”

THAT’S where I am going to hit the next one out of the park!

It’s actually not a bad pitch. Inside, curving low, it has every right to expect to find a safe home in the catcher’s mitt. Instead, after the Babe CONNECTS, it takes flight and misses the said flag-pole by the barest whisker – the longest home run that had ever been hit in Chicago to that time.

Suck on that one, Chicago.

It is known as, “The only home run that was ever called in advance as to both time and place.”

The Yankees win, the legend of Babe Ruth deepens further and the mob would never forget him.

When the Babe finally died in 1948 – oh, say it ain’t so– his open coffin was taken to Yankee Stadium where it lay in state in the middle of the baseball diamond for 24 hours, as no fewer than 100,000 New Yorkers filed past.

On ya, Babe. We talk about you still and da joisey ya wore on the corner of toidy-toid and toid Avenue’.

X/Twitter: @Peter_Fitz

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