The famous baseball that Babe Ruth sent to a sick kid with the promise to “knock a homer for you” scrawled on it sold at auction to a New York memorabilia collector for $250,000.
Little Johnny Sylvester, hospitalized after being kicked by a horse, got the ball from the Babe in the middle of the 1926 World Series.
The ball’s message, “I’ll knock a homer for you in Wednesday’s game,” became legendary when Ruth kept his word — and hit three home runs that day.
Buyer Pete Siegel — co-founder of Gotta Have It! collectibles — won the ball Thursday at Grey Flannel Auctions in Westhampton, LI. He wants the ball to be the starring piece in a Yankees museum he hopes to open in Manhattan in the next three years.
“We’re big Yankees fans,” Siegel said. “There’s nothing like the Yankees, no individual sports franchise like the Yankees, with this kind of great history.”
The 11-year-old New Jersey boy had been suffering from swelling in his brain after his run in with a horse, when Ruth took an interest in his condition.
Ruth sent the baseball just before Game 4 of the 1926 World Series. The message can still be clearly seen on the ball, alongside Ruth’s name.
Sylvester would later say that Ruth’s message and the Bambino’s home runs helped him recover.
Siegel also paid $76,747 for a letter Ruth sent to little Johnny after the 1926 season.
The ailing youngster recovered and led a very full life — and even visited Ruth years later when Ruth himself became ill.
Sylvester served in World War II and was president of a company that manufactured packing machinery. He passed away at age 74 in 1990, according to son Johnny Sylvester Jr.
The younger Sylvester said he doesn’t believe his dad would have objected to selling the baseball.
The famed horsehide once spent 26 years on loan to the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore.
“I thought long and hard about it,” Sylvester Jr. told The Post on Sunday. “He was very reserved about the whole matter. If somebody asked him, he would have [told] the story. But he didn’t go out of the way to tell it.”
Siegel said other items he wants to include in his Yankees museum will include documents finalizing the Red Sox’s sale of Ruth to the Yankees, Lou Gehrig’s 1936 contract, and game-worn Yankee uniforms that once belonged to Ruth, Gehrig, Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio.