Robinson's jersey earns over $500,000 at auction

The Brooklyn Dodgers' 1951 season ended in heartbreak, but Jackie Robinson's home jersey from that year just fetched more than $500,000 at auction over the weekend. The auction website goldinauctions.com showed a listing for Robinson's game-used home jersey from the '51 season with 16 bids that concluded with a $553,500 sale. The bidding started at $150,000, with a portion of the winning bid going to the Jackie Robinson Foundation.

Robinson batted .338 that season, his fifth in the major leagues. It was his second-best batting average after his batting title from the 1949 season, when he hit .342. He also hit a career-best 19 home runs, which he matched the following year. Robinson was an All-Star for the third time in 1951 while finishing sixth in MVP voting.

But the Dodgers failed to advance to the World Series when they were defeated by the rival New York Giants in a best-of-three playoff series. The Giants advanced on Bobby Thomson's game-ending home run forever known as the "Shot Heard 'Round the World." The most recent sale of a Robinson jersey is nowhere near the top dollar that one has garnered in the past. A jersey from Robinson's rookie season in 1947 sold for $2.6 million in April 2018.

 

(With inputs from agencies.)