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SPORTS ZONE 2: Babe’s Bat Worth a Bundle

If you had $1.26 million, what would you do with it? If you are an unidentified east coast buyer, you might just buy Babe Ruth’s Louisville Slugger.

At Sotheby’s auction house on Thursday, December 2nd, Doug Allen made the winning bid. Allen, the President of a Chicago based auction house, bid on the bat for a buyer he declined to name.

The bat is 36 inches--three feet--long and made of ash. People call it the “Holy Grail” of sports memorabilia. The $1.26 million price tag made it the highest winning bid for a bat and the third highest for baseball merchandise. Mark McGuire’s 70th home run ball sold for $3 million and a Honus Wagner 1909 baseball card sold for $1.265 million.

Babe Ruth first used the bat in the new Yankee Stadium on April 18, 1923. In the third inning he hit a homerun and New York won the game, beating the Boston Red Sox 4-1. Eventually, Ruth donated the bat to the L.A. Times Newspaper as the winning prize for a high school home run contest. He also made an inscription in the bat: “To the boy home run king of Los Angeles, ‘Babe’ Ruth, N.Y., May 7th, 1923.”

Victor Orsatti was that boy. He kept the bat until his death and in his will gave it to his caretaker. The caretaker put it up for auction and will donate some of the proceeds to a baseball program in a Mexican Orphanage.

--Written by Sarah Kurachek

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