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IRON HORSE GEAR GALLOPS OFF BLOCK FOR SOLID 373G

A 70-year-old baseball warm-up jacket once worn by Yankees “Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig sold at auction yesterday for a record $373,750.

But the jacket’s new owner refused to even try it on, citing sentimental reasons.

“That’s a sacrilege,” said Gary Cypres, a Bronx-born sports-memorabilia collector and diehard Yankee fan who shelled out the big bucks for the piece of baseball history.

“Only Gehrig can wear it.”

Gehrig is thought to have worn the jacket during his final season, 1939. He played in a record-setting 2,130 consecutive games as a Yankee starting in 1925 until the muscular disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ended his career and later took his life.

“I bought it because it’s Gehrig’s,” Cypres said at the auction at the All-Star FanFest at the Javits Center in Manhattan. “I like the icon. People will still know Gehrig in 20 or 30 years from now.”

Cypres plans to display the jacket in his sports memorabilia museum in LA.

Dave Ennis, who had put it on the auction block, thought it would bring an even higher price.

“I wouldn’t have sold it if I knew I would only get this much,” he said.

Ennis came into possession of it via a great-aunt.

Also yesterday, Hunt Auctions sold the ball that Babe Ruth hit for his 712th home run for $172,500. The ball bears Ruth’s autograph and was bought by someone who submitted the high bid before the auction began.

samuel.goldsmith@nypost.com

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