Kirk Gibson's iconic black finished maple Worth Tennessee Thumper baseball bat sold for a whopping $575, 912. Gibson could barely walk and was not supposed to play in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, let alone hit a walk-off home run against the best closer in baseball at the time.

But on a 3-2 pitch, a hobbled Gibson stepped up to the plate and hit a two-run pinch-hit shot off of Dennis Eckersley, who was just one game removed from being named MVP of the American League Champion Series.  (A "flip book" video replay of Gibson's dramatic home run is at the end of this article.)

Gibson's Dodgers went on to beat Eckersley's Oakland A's in five games. Now 22 years later, Gibson's iconic black Worth Tennessee Thumper bat sold for a whopping $575,912 at auction and his jersey went for $303,277 in SCP Auctions’ October/November auction. St. Louis-based Worth Sports, which made the bat, was acquired by Rawlings in 2004.

“I was never really a collector,” said Gibson, manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. “As I looked at it and I started thinking about where I am in my life, I don’t want to have to worry about making sure these items are secure somewhere. I just felt like maybe it’s time to let the people who do like to collect things and display them buy them and then take some of the proceeds and fund my foundation."
 
In addition to Gibson's memorabilia, SCP's auction included the sales of a 1934 wooden bat used by Babe Ruth to hit career home run #702 ($137,865), a Ty Cobb H&B side-written professional model game-used bat ($75,330), Ruth’s personal cigar humidor ($41,434) and a Pete Rose “corked” game-used bat ($10,632).

Also read: Holy Cow! $14K for Sosa's corked bat.