DALLAS, TX.- There have been historic Sports auctions, legendary Sports auctions, landmark Sports auctions. But there has never been anything like Heritage’s August 23-25 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction, which could become the biggest Sports auction ever.

There have already been countless headlines about its centerpiece: the New York Yankees jersey Babe Ruth wore when he called his shot (or not?) against the Chicago Cubs in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series. The jersey, photo-matched more than any ever worn during a mythic moment, is even scheduled to return to Wrigley Field on July 23. The jersey’s $30 million estimate garners as many knowing nods as wide eyes. As Heritage’s Director of Sports, Chris Ivy, said this spring, when the jersey’s auction was first announced, “Ruth’s World Series jersey is the most significant piece of American sports memorabilia to be offered at auction in decades.”

Collectors wholeheartedly agree: Bids crossed the $10 million mark just hours after the auction opened for bidding Saturday.

But this auction’s highlights are seemingly endless, spanning jerseys worn by titans, bats swung by legends, balls smashed (and signed) by folk heroes, even the bases trodden by baseball’s home-run record-setter and an authenticated Yankees cap The Babe wore during the early 1930s. Every piece tells a story behind a statistic, conjures a memory of a milestone moment and shares its place in history with the heroes of diamonds, hardwood and gridiron.

Where even to begin? Perhaps with the virtual visit to Monument Park and the Murderers’ Row of jerseys worn by legendary Yankees — Gehrig, Mantle and DiMaggio joining Ruth — during history-making moments.

Gehrig shares this auction’s spotlight with Ruth, with whom he played more than 1,300 regular-season games. Heritage is honored to present a road Yankees jersey photo-matched to the 1938 season, which was toward the end of Gehrig’s 2,130 consecutive games-played streak.

During the back half of that year, The Iron Horse was noticeably and admittedly weakened by his yet-undiagnosed ALS. “I don’t know why,” he said toward the season’s end, “but I just couldn’t get going again.” Wrote biographer Jonathan Eig, “Though he played the entire 1938 season and helped the Yankees win the World Series, he knew something was wrong.” About a month into the 1939 season, Gehrig benched himself, never to return to the field until his immortal farewell at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939.

This jersey has been matched to three photos from The Iron Horse’s final full season.

The Mickey Mantle game-worn jersey is no less extraordinary: It has been photo-matched to Game 7 of the 1952 World Series — the Series during which Mantle hit the first of his record 18 career World Series home runs — and the following year’s championship, when The Mick belted a grand slam en route to the Yanks’ victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers. There’s a lot of power woven into those threads.

But this jersey also carries an extraordinary backstory: In 1955, the Yankees sent a crate of jerseys and equipment to an orphanage in Winston-Salem, N.C. Among the lot was a No. 7 jersey — Mantle’s. One 15-year-old boy wanted it, as The Mick was his favorite, but a friend snagged it first. So, the teenager saved up his monthly allowance and bought the Mantle jersey from his friend — for $2.50. He kept it for nearly four decades, selling it at auction in the mid-1990s — for $40,000! — to another Mantle fan. It’s expected to realize $4 million or more in this auction.

Rounding out this Yankee foursome is the jersey DiMaggio wore during Game 5 of the 1947 World Series, when he hit the game-winning homer to left field in the fifth inning. History was made during that World Series: It marked the Yanks’ 11th title, was the first to be televised and was the first to feature a Black major leaguer, Brooklyn Dodgers first baseman Jackie Robinson.

Robinson is represented by several significant offerings, including the Dodgers jersey he wore during the 1951 season, which Robinson saved. on Sept. 30 when he batted .338 and made the 12th-inning catch — on the final day of the regular season! — that propelled Brooklyn into the playoffs against the surging crosstown rivals, the New York Giants. The pair of 1950 pants make this a complete uniform from the complete player who forever changed the game.

Robinson, of course, was far more than just a breaker of barriers. He was also one hell of a ballplayer who swung a mean bat. “He is as good a hitter as I have ever seen with two strikes,” Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey said in 1950. He retired with a .313 batting average, 972 runs scored and 1,563 hits — and once told Ed Sullivan the key to hitting is a simple one: “Don’t swing too hard.”

In any other auction, this Hillerich & Bradsby signature model might have been the sole centerpiece: a signed Jackie Robinson Model R115 used by No. 42 during the 1955 season, when the Dodgers finally beat the New York Yankees to capture Brooklyn’s sole World Series title during its days in Ebbets Field. Its provenance, and the fact this is the only known autographed Robinson game-used bat, makes this 34-ounce slab of lumber feel like it weighs 100 pounds: It comes from the collection of early hobby pioneer Paul Hill, who writes in his letter of provenance that it “was obtained by me personally from Jackie Robinson at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, PA in the summer of the 1955 baseball season. Jackie autographed this bat in my presence.”

There are other slabs of legendary lumber in this auction, as well, among them a signature, side-written model Hillerich & Bradsby used by “Shoeless” Joe Jackson during his rookie season in 1911; a Louisville Slugger used by Babe Ruth during the 1921 season, when he swatted 59 homers to set a single-season record; and the Hillerich & Bradsby signature model Ted Williams used to club Home Run No. 519 in 1960, after which he added his autograph.

Heritage’s Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction just might be remembered as The Hank Aaron Auction in some quarters.

Two jerseys in this event bookend one of baseball’s most extraordinary careers: a Milwaukee Braves zip-up worn during his rookie season in 1954 and an Atlanta Braves pullover Aaron wore the day before he was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers 20 years later. Each jersey is singularly significant: The 1954 jersey bears faintly visible vestiges of the original No. 5 Aaron wore during his first steps to the plate, while Hammerin’ Hank wore the ’74 model during a Nov. 1, 1974, sojourn to Tokyo to square off against Japanese home-run king Sadaharu Oh in front of 50,000 fans at Korakuen Stadium. Aaron won the contest: 10 homers to Oh’s nine.

That wasn’t the only home-run race Aaron won that year: On April 8, in front of 53,775 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Aaron stepped to the plate in the fourth inning against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing. The Braves were down by one. So, too, was Aaron: He was one home run shy of Babe Ruth’s record mark of 714. With the count 1-0, Downing left one hanging over the middle of the plate. Aaron responded by sending the ball over the left-center-field wall and into the Braves’ bullpen.

“It’s gone!” shouted Braves announcer Milo Hamilton. “It’s 715! There’s a new home run champion of all time, and it’s Henry Aaron!” Britt Gaston and Cliff Courtenay, teenaged fans, infamously joined Aaron as he took his victory lap around the bases — bases that were eventually gathered by a Braves staffer and kept in a cardboard box, where they’ve been ever since under the care of that staffer’s son. Aaron’s uniform from that game and the bat and ball from that historic homer are on display in Cooperstown. The bases are in this auction.

Among the myriad home-run balls of consequence in this auction, there’s one of recent vintage (and videos): Shohei Ohtani’s 176th career home-run ball, which looks like your average MLB-issue ball but is anything but.

On April 21, 2024, Ohtani squared off against New York Mets right-hander Adrian Houser at Dodgers Stadium, hammered the ball 423 feet into the right field pavilion, then ran into the history books. He had surpassed Hideki Matsui for most career homers in the majors by a Japanese player. “It had been a goal of mine, and I wanted to get it done,” he said later, acknowledging that he was both overcome with joy and relief at having snagged the record from Matsui. “I personally plan on hitting a lot more.”

Jason Patino famously caught the ball (well, after it took a bounce and hit his head) — on his first trip to Dodgers Stadium, no less, where Japanese media and fans documented the aftermath. As Sports Collectors Daily recently noted, Patino declined the Dodgers’ offer of some memorabilia in exchange for the ball, but “a member of the MLB Authentication team did place a holographic sticker on the ball that day and details of the moment are now in its database.” Before the pitch to Ohtani, the handwritten “E6” was also added should it eventually land in the history books.

The Boys of Summer aren’t the sole stars of the Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction.

Among the iconic jerseys offered in this event is a Philadelphia Warriors jersey worn by Wilt Chamberlain during the 1960-61 season, when the third-year star-in-ascendance averaged 38.4 points, 27.2 rebounds and 1.9 assists throughout 79 games. Just as thrilling is this Chicago Bulls jersey Michael Jordan wore during his Last Dance in 1998, when the Bulls clenched their second three-peat title in a decade — and Jordan was crowned the Finals MVP for the record sixth (and final) time. The jersey was signed by Jordan for a Charitabulls event and photo-matched to the Feb. 19, 1998, game against the Toronto Raptors.

Another photo-matched gem in this event is Shaquille O’Neal’s signed — and complete! — LSU Tigers uniform worn during the season the Associated Press and UPI named the gentle giant the college player of the year. Until this auction, Heritage has never offered one of Shaq’s college uni — or even seen one. Sports Investors Authentication acknowledged it’s the real thing, photo-matching the jersey and shorts to a Jan. 8, 1991, brawl with the Georgia Bulldogs at Maravich Assembly Center.

This auction also makes the first time anyone can buy 100 basketballs signed by Kobe Bryant around 1996 — in a single lot. The backstory alone makes these rookie-era Kobe balls a must-have. As Will Stern recently wrote, “While the sheer volume of the collection is notable in its own right, the circumstances surrounding its origin are even more fascinating.”

Football rushes into the record books, too, with the addition of the Los Angeles Rams jersey Eric Dickerson wore on Dec. 9, 1984, when he ran for 215 yards against the Houston Oilers to become pro football’s single-season rushing leader. Not only has it been photo-matched to that historic moment, but the former member of SMU’s Pony Express signed it as well, detailing with a Sharpie its significance in the annals of NFL history: “New N.F.L Record, 2007 yds., 12-9-84, Los Angeles Rams 27, Houston Oilers 16.”

One of the auction’s most battered jerseys is also one of its most beautiful, especially for any fan of the Chicago Bears who did “The Super Bowl Shuffle” in 1985. Photomatching confirms this is the very jersey William “The Refrigerator” Perry wore during Super Bowl XX, when the Bears chewed up the New England Patriots 46-10 in the Louisiana Superdome. The defensive tackle (only “the most colorful character that’s ever taken the field in the NFL”) did it all in that game, including a one-yard touchdown run single-handedly responsible for “a new craze for prop bets,” The New York Times reported in 2014. But this jersey survived long after that epic game: Photomatching reveals it was also worn during the Dec. 27, 1987, win over the Los Angeles Raiders and a Sept. 16, 1990, victory over the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau.

Which, at long last, brings us to the most historic piece of paper in this auction: the circa-1923 “Certificate of Membership” signed by NFL president Joe Carr and presented to the Packers, which the world’s foremost Packers historian considers “the most valuable piece of Green Bay Packers memorabilia” ever offered at auction. “At least it’s hard to imagine there being any other document or artifact that better symbolizes what this storied franchise is all about,” Cliff Christl, the team’s historian, wrote on Packers.com in 2017. Visitors to the Packers Hall of Fame have seen only a small reproduction of this landmark document signed by Carr. But this is the real thing — and among the most important things ever offered at auction associated with the only team owned by its fans.

Of course, there are other significant slivers of cardboard in this auction as well, vintage treasures (including a 1952 Topps Mantle graded PSA Near Mint-Mint 8 and a 1909-11 T206 Piedmont Ty Cobb graded PSA Mint 9, each estimated at more than $1 million) and modern-day gems with stories too big to keep contained in their grading-service holders.

One card already generating excitement is the 1907 Seamless Steel Tubes postcard featuring a fresh-faced, 21-year-old rookie Cobb before he was known as The Georgia Peach — itself an extraordinary rarity that’s “one of the most significant Cobb documents ever to tempt a collecting audience,” notes the catalog. But the postcard contains a note written by Cobb to a friend and former teammate, Tom Bird, which reads:

“Well, we have won the pennant and here for world series. I led in hitting, stolen bases 60, assists, and second 100 runs, hit 355 unofficially — hope you lots of luck, will be glad to hear at any time. Royston GA., have an offer to go with all-Americans out to California. Excuse this advertising card.” Cobb also signed the postcard under his photo: “Ty.” As Sports Collectors Daily recently reported, “No other Seamless Steel cards written in Cobb’s hand have ever been discovered.”

There are also 16 Exquisite masterpieces in this auction from a single collection, among them one of the rarest LeBron James rookie cards: an offering from the 2003 Upper Deck Exquisite Collection numbered 21/23, featuring a perfect patch and autograph. This extraordinary collection of Exquisite Collection cards also features signed relics from Jordan, Bryant, Bill Russell, Julius Erving and other basketball immortals.

This will be an auction for the ages and a few halls of fame — perhaps, even the Library of Congress, too, thanks to the addition of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s golf clubs and bag, all decorated with five stars and the former Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force’s signature. They’re more than just stellar keepsakes; they’re the tools of the trade that belonged to the man who helped popularize golf in the years following World War II. Hence, Eisenhower was the first president to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame just 15 summers ago.

“One would be hard-pressed to find any single person who did more to popularize the game of golf, not only in the United States but throughout the world, than President Eisenhower,” Arnold Palmer said at the time. “His visibility, coupled with his passion for the game, were the inspiration for literally millions of people picking up the game for the first time. Those involved in golf today owe him a great debt of gratitude.”

Just one more mammoth piece of history available in an auction that’s sure to be historic.