An auction at Yankee Stadium brought together some fine Babe Ruth memorabilia. Piece de Resistance was a road jersey that was worn by the Bambino. This jersey was reportedly sold for a whopping $5.6 million, a record-breaking amount.
At Yankee Stadium, more than 400 items were brought in for an auction, mostly by his family or by collectors. According to the auction’s catalog, the auctioned jersey is only one of six remaining jerseys that Ruth wore in his heydays.
In 2012, another jersey was sold for $4.4 million. It wasn’t publicly announced who paid even more yesterday.
The Sultan of Swat never behaved like a true sportsman. He was a heavy smoker and a heavy drinker and a big party animal. This all eventually resulted in his demise. By 1934, his final season with the Yankees, his lifestyle had caught up with him as his stamina was even that bad, he couldn’t even run or field anymore; pretty hard in a time when there was no designated hitter yet.
As in the final years of his career, there were rumors about teams wanting Ruth as their (player-)manager. But none of those rumors appeared to be true. Only one club was really interested: The Detroit Tigers. The owner, Frank Navin, wanted Ruth to become the team’s player-manager but the talks eventually stalled as Navin did not want to give Ruth a substantial portion of the club’s box office money.
During his final season, Ruth openly campaigned to become the Yankees’ manager. But with successful manager Joe McCarthy firm in charge, Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert never intended to replace McCarthy with Ruth.
Eventually, Ruth ended up with the Boston Braves in 1935 as the owner promised him a spot as their manager. But Ruth would be nothing more than a gate attraction. As his numbers dropped dramatically, he decided to call it a career after his last game on June 2. Another reason for his retirement was that he found out that Fuchs, the Braves’ owner, had deceived him, and had no intention of making him manager or giving him any significant off-field duties. He later stated that his only duties as vice president consisted of making public appearances and autographing tickets. A sad end of a great career.
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