Babe Ruth baseball fetches $7,250

Content Originally Published by The Free Press on Monday October 18, 2010.

MANKATO — It took 10 minutes for the Bambino’s baseball to fetch big bucks.

An orb deemed to have been autographed by Babe Ruth in 1929 sold for $7,250 in an auction Sunday in Mankato.

Auctioneer Willa Dailey said the buyer, a male Mankatoan who prefers anonymity, bested about 20 others in a sale conducted on the Internet and for on-site bidders.

Dailey said the ball’s sale price was in line with prices received for similar Ruth baseballs and jibed with a recent value estimate she received from a dealer in sports collectibles.

“I’m very satisfied. Of course, I always hope it’ll bring more because I work on commission, and in my business you’re paid for results, not effort,” Dailey said.

The process was for serious buyers only, with an opening bid price set at $6,000. That dissuaded 12 Internet bidders immediately, with five people duking it out until the end, Dailey said.

With sales tax and auction fees the buyer ended up with a tab of about $8,300.

Dailey said the sale veered from her usual estate-auction routine.

“It was a pleasant change of pace from pots and pans and bed linens.”

The Ruth baseball was found among myriad boxes of belongings hoarded away over the decades by Margaret Rudowsky, an elderly Wisconsin resident whose possessions were left to relatives in Janesville.

Proceeds from the ball sale will go to Rudowsky, whose said her late husband attended a 1929 game at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in which Ruth homered.

Rudowsky said her husband caught the ball and had Ruth sign it.

Prior to the auction the ball was sent to PSA/DNA, a California company that for a fee provides opinion-based determinations on autographs and memorabilia. The firm certified that the signature is authentic, though it cannot guarantee it as such.