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.
Born George Herman Ruth Jr. to parents George Sr. and Kate Schamberger-Ruth in Baltimore, Maryland in 1895, Ruth and his sister Mamie were the only two survivors out of eight children. Ruth did not have an idyllic childhood, often being left to his own devices to get by. When he was only seven, his parents sent him to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, which Ruth looked at more as prison than school. He saw his parents only rarely and rapidly became known by the nuns at St. Mary’s as a problem child.
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.
After only five months, Ruth was signed to the Red Sox, where he spent six years playing the outfield and as a catcher. He rapidly gained popularity with fans for his performance on the field as well as his colorful nightlife off the diamond. Ruth played his first of many World Series games in 1916, where he set a record of fourteen innings pitching; a record which remains unbroken to this day. In World Series games alone, he achieved a record of 29 2/3 innings with no score as a pitcher – this record would stand for 43 years. He was traded to the New York Yankees in 1919; it wasn’t until 2004 that the Red Sox won the World Series again, a phenomena which became known as the “Curse of the Bambino”.
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.
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!
Ruth left the Yankees in 1935 – he had wanted to be manager of the team and he decided to leave rather than stay in another capacity. He instead signed on with the Boston Braves as first base coach and player, with the promise of the manager’s chair in the following year. Seeing that the Braves were unlikely to keep this promise, Ruth went out in style. In one of his final games, Ruth hit three home runs against the Pittsburgh Pirates for a career total of 714 home runs. The Babe’s 2,211 RBIs, 2.28 career ERA as a left-handed pitcher and his 8,399 at-bats along with all of his many achievements have made him a player who will always be remembered as long as there is a game called baseball.