Babe Ruth Baseball Bat Sells for $1.3 Million!

As incredible as it may sound, the old baseball bat that Babe Ruth used in hitting a home run in the very first game at Yankee Stadium, sold for nearly $1.3 million at an auction recently.

Sotheby's auction house sold the bat on December 2, 2006 at their auction. No other baseball bat in history has ever come close to selling for as much as this one used by the immortal Babe Ruth.

In fact, the second highest bat that has ever been sold was one that went for $577,610 in 2001. It was a bat used by the infamous "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. You may remember him as being one of the players who were banned from baseball for their part in the famous Chicago White Sox scandal in 1919.

Who purchased the Babe's bat? At the moment the buyer is not known. It is believed that the person is a supposed collector and hobbyist of baseball collectables. What may be even more incredible is that a spokesman for the buyer told reporters afterwards that they were prepared to pay an even higher amount for the baseball bat.

In a bit or irony, the bat was used to hit the home run on April 18, 1923, in a game against who else, but their arch rivals, the Boston Red Sox. What is even more ironic is the fact that the bat sold for what it nearly cost to build Yankee Stadium at the time. The original Yankee Stadium was built at a cost of $2.4 million dollars. Hard to imagine isn't it?

How did the Babe Ruth baseball bat survive the test of time to get to this point? The story goes that Babe Ruth's agent, a woman by the name of Christy Walsh, originally gave the bat away in a home run contest many years ago. The player who won the bat held onto it through his death, and in his will, gave it to his personal nurse. She decided to try and sell the bat and use the funds to open up a cafe that she has always dreamed of doing. With a little help from others, Sotheby's became involved and the rest is now history.

Although this is the most expensive bat ever sold, it is not the most expensive price that has been paid for a piece of baseball memorabilia. The record holder? Currently, the record is $3 million for the baseball that Mark McGwire hit for home run #70 in 1998. The buyer was a comic book artist by the name of Todd McFarlane.