What sports do Americans love the most and can play anywhere with pleasure? Baseball and American football. Today we debate which are the most expensive baseball bats in the world.
Babe Ruth’s bat, $1.265 million
Babe Ruth
The most valuable baseball bat in the world is George Herman Ruth’s, also known as Babe Ruth, a bat with which he hit the first home run on the Yankee Stadium’s grand opening day, April 18th 1923, in New York City USA. The bat was purchased by MastroNet, Inc (an Illinois based auction house) at a Sotheby’s New York auction for a record $1,265,000 on December 2nd, 2004.
The bat is a Louisville Slugger and it is said that, when Babe Ruth made that home run in 1923, many feared that the player might destroy it either to end the dreaded “Curse of the Bambino” and allow the Red Sox victory in that year’s World Series or to sell pieces of it for profit. This did not happen and in the meantime it became the most expensive baseball bat in the world sold at an auction.
The bat features an autograph and dedication “To the Boy Home Run King of Los Angeles” and a brass plate that reads “Presented to Victor Orsatti at Manual Arts H.S. by the Los Angeles Evening Herald.” The 46-ounce bat’s model number, 148, is still visible.
During his career, Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs, played 22 years for 2 teams: Boston Red Sox (1914-1919) and New York Yankees (1920-1934), and is considered the best baseball player of all time.
Ty Cobb’s bat, $1.1 million
A baseball bat that was used by Ty Cobb was sold for a whopping $1.1 million in a private sale. According to TMZ Sports (an online newspaper owned by Warner Media), the bat in question was produced by the Hillerich & Bradsby company. He used it for over seven seasons of his Hall of Fame career – including the 1922 season when he had a .401 batting average with this bat in the official matches of the season, setting a record. Ty Cobb was an iconic player for the Detroit Tigers for which he played 22 seasons.
The bat was authenticated and graded by PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator), who gave it a perfect GU 10 grade. It contained markings and tape, which were consistent with some other bats that Cobb used. In addition, the bat also included a hand-written note from Cobb that explained he used this bat during the 1928 season, the last year of his baseball career, with the Philadelphia Athletics (he played here for the last 2 years of his career, 1927 and 1928).
Cobb, like Ruth, is one of the biggest stars in MLB (Major League of Baseball) history. The Detroit Tigers legend hit 117 home runs, was a 12-time American League batting champion, the Triple Crown winner (1909) and the American League MVP (1911).
Meta Louisville, $499.95
Leaving aside the baseball bats of the past and coming back to the present day, for those of you who want to buy a top baseball bat, we did a search and found, as a reference recommended by the American press, a baseball bat called Meta Louisville, made of composite material and produced in 2021 by Louisville Slugger, a famous company in the industry that is headquartered in Chicago.
It has the patented EKO Composite Barrel technology – a composition of materials designed to take you to the heights of performance; providing a light swinging weight, a powerful hit and an extraordinary knocking sound.
The three-piece design, with a patented 3FX Connection System that allows a “stiff” feel which is perfectly adjusted to contact while reducing vibrations, makes this bat the ultimate combination of speed and power. It costs nearly $500 and is the recommendation of the year in the United States, according to pinetarpress.com.
