1927 Babe Ruth Home Run #48 Baseball Signed and Notated in Ruth's Hand!. ...

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The only known self-authenticated home run baseball from Ruth's greatest season!

1927 Babe Ruth Home Run #48 Baseball Signed and Notated in Ruth's Hand!
Place the true baseball fan/collector/historian in the cockpit of a time machine, his fingers at the keyboard, and you'll find "The Bronx, 1927" the most commonly typed destination. For nine decades, the stories of Murderer's Row have been told and retold, passed from father to son to grandson, the borders between fact and folklore now difficult to discern, turned hazy in the brilliant light of its perfection. Though the christening of the game's finest edifice with the franchise's first World Championship in 1923 put the baseball world on notice, it was the season of 1927 that the Yankees truly became the team that we now know it to be, and that Babe Ruth cemented his personal legacy as the most enduring name in American sport.

Lou Gehrig's American League MVP nod and a four-game World Series sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates, monumental achievements in their own right, are today recalled largely as footnotes to a greater history, the Babe's successful assault on his own single season home run record. In the mind of most baseball purists, that 1927 tally of five dozen still holds sway as the last legitimate "apples to apples" elevation of long ball slugging's high water mark.

While Ruth's final sum is universally known, far fewer are aware how unlikely an improvement upon his 1921 standing record appeared as the 1927 Major League season entered its final month. Though Rudy York would stun the baseball world with eighteen long balls during the first August of his career in 1937, the Babe's seventeen home runs in September 1927 remains to this day the most clubbed in a month by an American League left-hander. It is entirely accurate to say that those thirty days found Ruth at the absolute apex of his slugging prime.

The OAL (Johnson) sphere is one of just two known self-authenticated home run baseballs from the Bambino's career total of 714, and the only one to derive from his record 1927 campaign. Just to the right of Ruth's bold black fountain pen ink sweet spot signature, he provides the historic details in his own hand: "48 Home Run, Sept. 7, 1927."

That figure corresponds with a first inning solo shot at Ruth's old Red Sox home, the first of two he'd launch that day during a visit to Fenway Park. He'd hit three in a doubleheader the day before. Within the week, the Yankees would clinch their third pennant in franchise history.

Few artifacts in the hobby more effectively symbolize the peerless brilliance of Murderer's Row and its leading figure than the horsehide sphere on offer. It's a singularly significant relic in every regard, from its historical position in the shared histories of the New York Yankees and Babe Ruth to the "population one" status as a self-validated 1927 homer. The most important Ruth home run baseball to cross the hobby's auction block since his 1933 All-Star Game model commanded over $800,000 a dozen years ago. Full LOA from PSA/DNA. Full LOA from James Spence Authentication. Full LOA from SGC Authentic.