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 on February 6 in 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland and was the son of Kate Schamberger-Ruth and George Senior. Kate had eight children with George Sr. but only two would survive past infancy - a daughter Mamie and The Babe. Babe didn’t have the best of childhood memories, taking care of himself most of the time. At seven, Ruth was sent to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys-more of a reformatory and orphanage than a school. Without his parents, except some weekends and holidays, Babe was what the Nuns at St. Mary’s called “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.
It was not long before Ruth’s contract was purchased by the Boston Red Sox, where he would spend the next six years both as a catcher and in the outfield. Ruth became immensely popular with fans for his flair on and off the diamond. With the Red Sox, Ruth played his first World Series in 1916. Ruth pitched a still intact record of 14 innings. In fact, Ruth achieved a record setting 29 2/3 innings with no hits as a pitcher in World Series games alone! This record would last for 43 years. In 1919, an ill-advised trade saw Babe Ruth traded to the New York Yankees (ill-advised for the Red Sox anyway, a triumph for the Yankees). This began the “Curse of the Bambino”; the Red Sox would not win another World Series until 2004!
He would begin his career as a Yankee in 1920; with Ruth, the Yankees would go on to win 7 American League Pennants and a staggering 4 World Series. In 1920 alone, Ruth hit 54 home runs. Babe was no less popular with fans in New York than he had been in Boston, both for his skills as a player and for his candor. In 1923, the Yankees built the (now former) Yankee Stadium, which would come to be called The House That Ruth Built. Ruth hit a home run on the very first day Yankee stadium was open - as well as helping to secure another World Series title for the Yankees. In 1914, he had married Helen Woodford. Thanks to his success in baseball, he was able to purchase a country home in 1919 and the couple adopted a daughter, Dorothy. The two separated (but did not divorce) in 1925 - at the time, Ruth was involved with the model Claire Hodgson. When Helen Woodford passed away in 1929, Ruth married Hodgson and dedicated an out of the park home run he hit in his first at bat in April of that year.
Throughout his 22-year career in baseball, Babe will forever be remembered for his 60 home runs in 1927, a record that stood until Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961. Sports fans everywhere argue to this day who actually holds this record since Babe hit his 60 in 154 games and Maris hit his in 162 games. No one, however, can deny The Babe’s impressive .690 lifetime batting percentage-something that may never be seen again. Along with The Babe, sports writers gave him nicknames like The Great Bambino and The Sultan of Swat.
Of just as much import was the home run scored by Babe Ruth in the 3rd game of the 1932 World Series against the Chicago Cubs. Legend has it that Ruth said that he would hit a home run over the center stands in memory of Dugout Dora, a stray cat Ruth would feed every time he played at Wrigley Field. Ruth pointed and hit a home run right where he had pointed; it was one of the longest home runs ever hit out of Wrigley Field.
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.