Auctions
Shohei Ohtani surpasses baseball legends for highest selling game-worn shoes with $400K sale
Baseball legends Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and Hank Aaron have each had game-worn baseball shoes sell for five figures.
Even Michael Jordan’s game-worn minor league cleats netted a five-figure sale.
But game-worn footwear by current superstar Shohei Ohtani has surpassed them all and set a record for game-used shoes.
Ohtani’s game-used and personally signed New Balance Ohtani 1 shoes from the opening game of the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series sold for $440,055 at The Realest. The shoes set a public auction record for the most expensive baseball shoes ever sold.
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The sale is nearly five times Jordan’s previous record for baseball footwear—$93,000 for his 1994 game-worn and signed Birmingham Barons cleats. Ohtani is one of just three athletes, alongside Jordan and Kobe Bryant, to have game-used footwear sell for more than $300,000. Jordan holds the record with the $8 million sale of his “Dynasty Collection” of six NBA championship shoes, and the record for a single pair of shoes at $2.2 million.
Ohtani signed the shoes in his rare Japanese Kanji signature after wearing them during his first-ever MLB game in his home country.
The Tokyo Series shoes outperformed previous auctions of game-used shoes from Ruth, Williams, Mantle, Aaron, Derek Jeter and current stars Kyle Schwarber and Aaron Judge. They also surpassed the highest-selling footwear on record from other sports icons, including Tom Brady, LeBron James, Lionel Messi and Stephen Curry.
“We’re incredibly proud of this result, which shows what The Realest can do when entrusted with a truly important piece of baseball history,” said Scott Keeney (aka DJ Skee), founder and CEO of The Realest. “This record-setting sale proves the value of prioritizing authentication, storytelling, global reach and relationships when bringing the world’s most important game-used memorabilia to market.”
The Ohtani shoes attracted 89 bids and is the highest-selling item in The Realest history.
TOP 10 BASEBALL SHOES
Top-10 baseball shoes sold at auction:
• $440,055: Shohei Ohtani’s 2025 MLB Tokyo Series (2026)
• $93,000: Michael Jordan 1994 game-used, signed Birmingham Barons cleats (2020).
• $81,563: Babe Ruth 1918 Red Sox single cleat (2021).
• $72,000: Babe Ruth game-used professional model cleats’ (2019).
• $70,745: Ted Williams 1960 final career game Red Sox cleats (2021).
• $12,438: Mickey Mantle 1960 Yankees game-used Rawlings cleats (2023).
• $10,800: Hank Aaron 1965 game-used cleats.
• $9,950: Shohei Ohtani game-used, signed ASICS cleats.
• $3,112: Derek Jeter 2011 game-used Yankees cleats (2026).
• $3,045: Kyle Schwarber 2023 game-used World Baseball Classic cleats (2026)
