In 2016, Boston’s beloved DH David Ortiz wrapped up his Hall of Fame bound career in style by surpassing several baseball icons on the career home run list. Each month he surpassed another legend: in July he topped Ted Williams’ mark of 522 career homers; in August he eclipsed Jimmie Foxx and in September it was Mickey Mantle’s turn. On September 12th, Ortiz hit a 6th inning solo shot off Baltimore’s Oliver Drake for career homer number 536, tying him with The Mick at number 17 on the all-time career homers list. On September 15th, 2016, the Boston Red Sox played host to their bitter rivals, the New York Yankees. Trailing most of the game, Ortiz’s blast off Yankees’ reliever Adam Warren, not only closed the gap in the game to 5-2, it also put Ortiz past Hall of Famer and Yankees’ icon Mickey Mantle for 17th on the all-time home run list with his career home run 537.

Ortiz wore this pair of New Balance high-top baseball cleats during those two games in which he tied and broke Mantle’s career home run mark. These size 12 cleats were made of vented soft rubber with black synthetic sides and red New Balance logo. The rubber sole has 15 cleats and the size tag is attached to the underside of the tongue, which also indicates the manufacture date of May 2016. Ortiz’s number “34” is on each heel in black with red borders. These cleats display excellent game use and Big Papi has signed each shoe in black marker on the top of the toes and inscribed “GU 2016 Final Season Big Papi”. A wonderful set of game used items from not only Ortiz’s historic last season, but specifically tied to two historic home runs. These comes with a LOA from JT Sports for the game use and individual MLB Authenticated holograms (JC047125 – right, JC047126 – left), which authenticates that these cleats were worn for the final time on September 18th. Additionally, there are individual Fanatics holograms on each cleat (ZZ1117870 – left cleat, ZZ1117871 – right cleat).

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