(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Monday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE Cincinnati Reds 6, Toronto Blue Jays 3 NY Mets 4, Baltimore Orioles 3 Texas Rangers 4, Pittsburgh Pirates 3 San Diego Padres 5, Minnesota Twins 3 Chicago White Sox 3, San Francisco Giants 5 Seattle Mariners 0, LA Dodgers 3
AMERICAN LEAGUE Houston Astros 5, Boston Red Sox 4 Kansas City Royals 5, LA Angels Tampa Bay Rays 0, Oakland Athletics 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE Arizona Diamondbacks 9, Miami Marlins 6
(NEW YORK) — More than seven-and-a-half decades after his death, Babe Ruth made history again when a jersey he was wearing during his famous “called shot” home run plate appearance was auctioned off over the weekend for $24.1 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece of sports memorabilia.
The winning bid for the Great Bambino’s No. 3 New York Yankees road jersey came in at nearly double the price paid for what is now the second most expensive sports collectible — a mint condition Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card auctioned in 2022 for $12.6 million, according to Heritage Auctions, which handled the Ruth jersey sale.
“This is essentially the Mona Lisa, it’s a very mythical moment that crosses over not only in baseball history but American history, pop culture history,” Chris Ivy, Heritage Auctions’ director of sports auctions, told ESPN. “We’re still talking about it 100 years later, which is one of the reasons why I think it’s the most significant piece of sports memorabilia in the world.”
The name of the person who won the bidding war for Ruth’s flannel jersey was not disclosed. The price includes a 20% buyer’s premium, Heritage Auction said.
On Oct. 1, 1932, during Game 3 of the World Series at Wrigley Field, Ruth gestured to the centerfield wall before crushing a Carlie Root pitch into the bleachers for a three-run homer, the most famous of the 729 homers he hit during his career. The Yankees won the game 7-5 and went on to win the World Series, sweeping the Cubs the next day.
It was the last World Series Ruth played in.
“To me, it was the funniest, proudest moment I had ever had in baseball,” Ruth acknowledged after the game. “I jogged down toward first base, rounded it, looked back at the Cub bench and suddenly got convulsed with laughter. You should have seen those Cubs. There they were — all out on the top step and yelling their brains out — and then [I] connected and they watched it and then fell back as if they were being machine-gunned.”
The last time the Ruth “called shot” jersey was put on the auction block was in 2005, when it sold for $940,000, but that was before it was authenticated as the jersey the Sulton of Swat was wearing when he hit the epic home run, according to Heritage Auction.
“The most ironclad assurance of authenticity is delivered in photographic format, with industry-leading photo matching authenticators MeiGray supplying three photographs of Ruth in the October 1, 1932, World Series Game Three at Wrigley Field wearing this jersey,” Heritage Auction said in its auction catalog.
The auction house said the letter “Y” in “New York” on the jersey “demonstrated to be in perfect alignment with the buttons and curve of the front placket.”
“Other unique attributes utilized in the matching include a small notch on the left side of the ‘N’ in ‘NEW,’ a bend in the bottom of the ‘E’ and a slight tilt in the middle peak of the ‘W,'” the auction house said.
The authentication sent the jersey’s value skyrocketing. Before the auction, Ivy said the bidding was poised to go as high as $30 million.
Ivy told ESPN that a dozen people on the company’s mailing list were expected to bid $15 million to $20 million for the jersey. He said the auction house’s client list runs the gamut from attorneys up to sports team owners.
“This stuff is a great conversation starter as opposed to, you know, buying more IBM stock, investing in real estate,” Ivy said. “A lot of people feel like they were kinda maxed out on those things.”
(NEW YORK) — The widow of Columbus Blue Jackets star Johnny Gaudreau, Meredith Gaudreau, announced her pregnancy with their third child at Monday’s memorial service for Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew Gaudreau.
“John and I had the best six months as a family of four. These will forever be the best six months of my life,” Meredith Gaudreau said at the service. “There’s specifically one week that I will cherish forever — it will be my favorite week of my life out of those six months. We’re actually a family of five. I’m in my ninth week of pregnancy with our third baby.”
She called the pregnancy a “total surprise.”
“John was beaming and so excited,” she said. “His reaction was just immediately kissing me and hugging me.”
Their first child, daughter Noa Harper Gaudreau, was born Sept. 30, 2022. Their second, son Johnny Edward Gaudreau, was born Feb. 22.
“Noa, our oldest, hasn’t even turned 2 yet. In less than three years of marriage, we’ve created a family of five,” Meredith Gaudreau said at the memorial service. “It doesn’t even sound possible, but I look at it as the ultimate blessing. How lucky am I to be the mother of John’s three babies? Our last one being a blessing and so special despite these difficult circumstances.”
“To my babies, daddy loves you all so much and you have the best daddy in the world,” she said.
On Aug. 29, Johnny Gaudreau, 31, and his brother Matthew Gaudreau, 29, were riding bikes in Salem County, New Jersey, when they were struck and killed by a driver suspected of being under the influence of alcohol, according to police. The suspected driver was arrested and charged with two counts of death by auto, according to police.
Matthew Gaudreau’s wife, Madeline Gaudreau, is also pregnant with their first child.
“This last week has felt like I’ve been trapped in a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Madeline Gaudreau said at the memorial service. “I feel numb, angry, sad, blessed all at once. Some days the thought of this new reality is debilitating. But mostly, I just miss Matt.”
“The 14 years we spent together will never be enough, but I will cherish those and carry them close to me, especially on the extremely hard days,” she said.
“He was born to be a dad,” Madeline Gaudreau said. “The moment we found out about our son Tripp, it consumed his every day. He was downloading apps, ordering books, finding the best diaper brand, making sure I had the best vitamins and asking for tips from John. I will never forget the tears he had in his eyes when he first heard Tripp’s heartbeat.”
“I know Matt will surround his son for the rest of his life,” she said through tears.
She said she hopes her son and Meredith Gaudreau’s baby, Johnny, have the same bond their dads did.
To Meredith Gaudreau, she said, “I promise that I will always be there for you and the kids.”
Madeline Gaudreau also made a point at the service to urge people to not drink and drive.
“Please do not put another family through this torture,” she said.
The Gaudreau brothers died the night before their sister, Katie, was set to get married, according to their former coaches.
The brothers were “always side by side” and “absolute best friends,” Meredith Gaudreau wrote on Instagram two days after their deaths.
“I don’t think John could live a day without you so I’m comforted knowing you are of course together in heaven,” she said in a message to her brother-in-law.
“Matty, thank you for loving our babies like your own and for being such an amazing uncle and godfather,” she added, pledging to take care of his wife, Madeline, and their future son.
“Please continue to take care of John like you always have. I got Madeline and Tripp,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — American gymnast Simone Biles is considered by many to be the G.O.A.T — the Greatest Of All Time — and for good reason.
“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I’m the first Simone Biles,” she told reporters at the 2016 Olympics.
Here’s a look at Biles’ historic gymnastics career thus far as she heads to her third Olympic Games, this year in Paris, France:
Most decorated gymnast of all time
Her rise to fame began in the wake of the 2012 Olympics, which Biles was too young to qualify for.
In 2013, at the age of 16, she secured four medals — two golds — in her first appearance at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
In 2014, she won four golds and a silver at the competition. In 2015, she scored another four gold medals and a bronze. In 2018, she won four golds, one silver, and one bronze. In 2019, she won five gold medals. In 2023, she won four golds and one silver.
Overall, she’s scored 30 world titles, 23 as a gold medal winner, according to the official Olympics website.
In her first Olympic Games in 2016, Biles won four gold medals and one bronze. In Tokyo, she won one silver and one bronze before sitting out for the rest of the competition to focus on her mental and physical health.
Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history — male or female — according to the Olympics. In all, she has 37 world and Olympic medals combined.
She has five moves named after her
Biles now has five signature moves named after her in three different events: on the floor, on vault, and on the balance beam.
“Many people aren’t even attempting to do them because there’s such high difficulty high risk maneuvers, and she does them with complete ease and effort,” Dominique Dawes, a three-time Olympian and 18-year gymnastics veteran. “It’s amazing to watch what she’s doing. And she does it with a smile on her face.”
For a move to be named after an athlete in gymnastics, the gymnast has to submit a video of them performing the move to the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique Women’s Technical Committee.
The committee determines the difficulty of the skill, and if it receives a high enough difficulty score, it is then eligible to be named.
Then, a gymnast must perform the move without “a major fault” at an international competition.
The “Biles on the floor” — first successfully completed by Biles on the world stage in 2013 at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships — is a double layout with a half-twist, which means that her body remains straight and elongated as she flips twice.
Her second signature move on the floor, “Biles II,” was first successfully completed on the world stage in 2019. For this move, Biles performs a triple-double, meaning she Biles flips twice while twisting three times before hitting the ground.
The Biles on the vault is a round-off, into a back hand-spring with a half turn, completing the move by twisting twice in a somersault. It one of the most difficult vaults in women’s artistic gymnastics, with a difficulty score of 6.4.
Biles II on the vault is the most recent move to be named after the athlete. In 2023, she became the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike, a move that consists of a backflip off the vault and two full rotations in a pike position before landing.
The Biles on the balance beam, completed in 2019, features a double-double dismount from the beam — two flips and two twists.
Dawes was a gymnast during the old ways of scoring — which is when gymnasts aimed simply for a “perfect 10.” Now, gymnasts are scored on two metrics — the perfect 10 of execution and the open-ended scoring of difficulty that gymnasts have free reign of collecting points on.
Dawes said that with the old way of scoring, there was “no need to push yourself beyond that value.” Now, “sky is the limit” for athletes like Biles.
“It really is Simone versus herself.” Dawes said. “That’s really what makes her one of the greatest of all time … Back then they used to cap our scores. And so now with this new scoring system, the sky is the limit for athletes like Simone, who’s very talented. And so if she does a higher, difficult maneuver on any of the different pieces of apparatus, she’ll actually get credit for it.”
Prioritizing her mental and physical health
Simone Biles pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics before finishing the individual all-around competition and the team final following a shocking stumble on vault.
“We wholeheartedly support Simone’s decision and applaud her bravery in prioritizing her well-being. Her courage shows, yet again, why she is a role model for so many,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement.
Her exit shined a light on mental health among elite athletes who face intense pressures as the world watches. She later also discussed how her exit was tied to her struggle to recover mentally after being sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar.
Biles has also been outspoken about experiencing depression and having to take anxiety medication in the fallout of the Nassar abuse.
“As a recent competitor in the Tokyo Games who was a survivor of this horror, I can assure you the impacts of this man’s abuse are not over or ever forgotten,” Biles said at a 2021 Congressional hearing. “The announcement in the spring of 2020 that the Tokyo Games were to be postponed for a year meant that I would be going to the gym, to training, to therapy, living daily among the reminders of this story for another 365 days.”
Biles qualified in all six of the women’s gymnastics finals at the Tokyo Olympics and was expected to win an unprecedented six gold medals. The goal was to become the first woman since 1968 to win back-to-back titles in the all-around.
“I just never felt like this going into a competition before,” Biles said at a press conference Tuesday following the team final. “I tried to go out here and have fun, and warm up in the back went a little bit better, but once I came out here I was like, ‘No, mental is not there.’”
“It’s been really stressful this Olympic Games, just as a whole,” said Biles to reporters at the time. “It’s been a long week. It’s been a long Olympic process. It’s been a long year.”