Babe Ruth Baseball
Babe Ruth is a name which is instantly familiar to people around the world; even those who are not baseball fans and those far too young to actually remember the Sultan of Swat know his name and are familiar with the House That Ruth Built. Among younger Major League players, one of Babe’s superstitions has taken hold. As Babe said “whenever I hit a home run, I always make sure I touch all four bases”. Babe Ruth was larger than life in every sense of the word and he remains deeply rooted in the popular imagination - for there may be another like him.
George Herman Ruth Jr. was born in 1895 in Baltimore, MD, the son of George H. Ruth Sr. and Kate Schamberger-Ruth. One of two surviving children of eight (the other was his sister Mamie), Babe Ruth has a tough childhood, often being left to care for himself. At the tender age of seven, he was sent to the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, which he recalls more as a reformatory than a school. Deprived of parental guidance except on occasions, Ruth quickly earned a reputation among the nuns at the school as an incorrigible.
Ruth never was one for rules and was not a good fit for the strictly ordered life offered by St. Mary’s school. However, he did learn his lifelong love of the game of baseball while at the school. Jack Dunn, manager of the Baltimore Orioles (then a minor league farm team for the Boston Red Sox) was amazed by the then nineteen year old Ruth’s talent and immediately signed him on. He was given the nickname of “Jack’s newest babe” by teammates - a name that stuck.
With the Orioles for only five months, the Boston Red Sox purchased his contract and at 19, he both pitched and played the outfield for six years. During this period, fans took note of Babe’s performance on and off the field, with his off the field stories being more colorful through his eating and drinking all-night parties that included many women. Playing in his first World Series Game in 1916, he set a record that still stands today, a fourteen inning game that became the longest in the history of the World Series. His pitching skills at this time left him an astounding record of 29 2/3 scoreless innings in World Series bouts alone, a record that stood for forty-three years. In December of 1919, a weird trade of sorts would land him with the Yankees-leaving the Red Sox in a World Series denial until 2004!
In 1920, he began his Major League career with the New York Yankees where Babe and his teammates would win 7 American League Pennants and 4 World Series Titles, a legacy called “The Curse of the Bambino.” Babe hit an amazing 54 home runs in 1920 and was both a fan and player favorite not just for his home run hitting skills, but also for his candor. In 1923, mostly due to the popularity of The Babe, the Yankees opened Yankee Stadium that would eventually be named, The House That Ruth Built-how appropriate that The Babe would hit a home run on opening day, along with yet another World Series Title. Married to Helen Woodford in October of 1914, by 1919, Babe had enough money to buy them a country house and adopt a daughter they named Dorothy. After a separation, but no divorce in 1925, Babe did not remain the good boy when it came to women and continued an affair with model Claire Hodgson. Upon Helen’s death by fire in 1929, Babe married Claire and hit her an out-of-the-park homerun in his first at bat in April of that same year.
Ruth’s 60 home runs in 1927 are another long standing record the player set - it would stand until Roger Maris’ 61 home runs in 1961. Many fans debate the vailidity of Maris’ record, being that it took Maris 182 games against Ruth’s 154. However, no one will debate Ruth’s .690 batting average, which has no equal to date. It wasn’t for nothing, after all that he is remembered as The Sultan Of Swat.
Another impressive achievement came in the third game off the 1932 World Series. The Yankees were playing against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Babe had already hit one home run earlier in the game, but in the fifth inning, Ruth hit what is believed to be the longest home run ever hit out of Wrigley Field until Sammy Sosa’s famous home run in 2002 which landed on Kenmore Avenue!
When Babe did not get his desired Yankee manager position in 1935, he left the Yankees and signed with the Brave’s as not only a player but also their first base coach accepting the promise of their manager position the following year. With his manager outlook grim, Babe hit three home runs in one of his final games against the Pittsburgh Pirates, where only a meager 10,000 fans saw him tip his hat at that last home run-his 714th. Still, with Babe’s 8,399 at-bats, 2,211 RBI’s and a career 2.28 ERA as a lefty pitcher, The Babe remains a true hero in the hearts and fans of baseball everywhere.
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