Babe Ruth’s First Baseball Card Hits a Grand Slam at Auction—Selling for Over $4 Million
In a result as legendary as the Bambino himself, the first baseball card ever produced for Babe Ruth—dating back to his teenage days with the Baltimore Orioles—has sold for a staggering $4,026,000 at Heritage Auctions’ Fall Sports Catalog event in Dallas, held October 24–26, 2025.
The 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card, graded SGC VG 3, captured the young left-hander before he’d thrown a single pitch for the Boston Red Sox or become the Sultan of Swat for the New York Yankees.
The card shows Ruth as a fresh-faced pitcher for his hometown Orioles, a minor league team in the International League, long before the “House that Ruth Built” was even imagined.
“Collectors often prioritize finding the first of anything,” said Chris Ivy, Heritage’s Director of Sports Auctions. “This is the first card ever produced for the game’s first genuine superstar, and one of the finest of his rookie cards in existence.”
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Rarer Than the T206 Wagner
To put it mildly, this isn’t your average bit of cardboard.
Only ten examples of the 1914 Baltimore News Ruth are known to exist across all grading services—and only one ranks higher.
That makes this piece rarer than the famed Honus Wagner T206, the Mona Lisa of baseball cards.
For perspective, the 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card hadn’t appeared at auction in a decade, and the only higher-graded example hasn’t surfaced in even longer.
The Baltimore News set originally featured 17 subjects, though just 11 are known to survive.
Ruth’s card, bordered in bold red and printed in red-and-white duotone, shows the young pitcher beneath the simple caption: “Ruth, Pitcher, International League, Balto.”
On the reverse is a printed Orioles schedule—a charming relic of an era when baseball cards were more about local loyalty than global fame.
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From the Babe’s Birthplace to the Big Leagues of Collecting
This specific card’s provenance adds to its legend. For years, it was displayed at The Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore—just a short stroll from Camden Yards, home of the modern Orioles.
Its brief imperfections—softened corners and faint creases—do little to diminish its aura. In the eyes of collectors, such flaws are patina, not damage; a century’s worth of fingerprints on baseball’s holy relic.
The sale comes amid a roaring market for sports memorabilia, where nostalgia and scarcity continue to drive eye-watering prices. Just months ago, Heritage set a record with the $12.93 million sale of the Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant Dual Logoman card. Yet for traditionalists, Ruth’s rookie remains the “Big Train” of baseball ephemera—older, rarer, and steeped in the mythology of America’s pastime.
A Home Run for History
The final hammer price of $4,026,000 underscores the enduring power of Ruth’s legend. More than a century after he first picked up a bat in Baltimore, the Bambino continues to break records—proving that even in the collecting world, the Babe still calls his shots.
As Ivy put it: “This isn’t just a card. It’s the first chapter in the story of baseball’s greatest icon.”
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