BABE RUTH

Born on February 6, 1895, George Herman Ruth was better known as Babe Ruth and also commonly known by the nickname The Sultan of Swat. As a child, Babe Ruth was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a school run by Catholic brothers. Brother Matthias, a Roman Catholic priest, and the school's disciplinarian, became the major influence on his life, the one man Babe respected above all others. It was Brother Matthias who taught him baseball, working with him for countless hours on hitting, fielding and later, pitching. Brother Matthias brought Babe to the attention of Jack Dunn, owner and manager of the minor-league Baltimore Orioles, and the man often credited with discovering him. In 1914 Dunn signed 19-year-old Ruth to pitch for his club, and took him to spring training in Florida, where a strong performance with bat and ball saw him make the club, while his precocious talent and childlike personality saw him nicknamed "Dunn's Babe". On April 22, 1914 "The Babe" pitched his first professional game, a six-hit, 6-0 victory over the Buffalo Bisons, also of the International League. Later, Dunn sold Ruth's contract, with two other players to Joseph Lannin, owner of the Boston Red Sox, for a sum rumored to be between $20,000 and $35,000. Though Ruth was a good pitcher, the Red Sox's starting lineup was already stacked with lefties, so they initially made little use of him.

The Sox reached the World Series thanks again to their pitching, in which Ruth pitched a 14-inning complete game to beat the Brooklyn Robins as Boston again won by 4 games to 1.  He repeated his strong performance in 1917, going 24-13, but the Red Sox, who could not keep pace with the Chicago White Sox and their 100 wins, missed out on a third straight postseason appearance. It was during this time that Ruth began displaying his true skills as a hitter, compiling a .325 batting average and sending 11 of his 40 hits for extra bases. By 1919, Ruth was basically a fulltime outfielder, pitching in only 17 of the 130 games in which he appeared. He set his first single-season home run record that year, hitting 29 with the Red Sox, breaking the previous record, while hitting .322 and driving in 114 runs. News of his batting feats spread rapidly, and wherever he played large crowds turned out to see him.

Despite the public appeal of Ruth, the Red Sox were in a perilious financial position. To attract the best players, owner Harry Frazee had paid relatively large salaries over the years. However, the team's failure to make the 1919 World Series and Frazee's own failings as a theater promoter meant that by the end of the year, he desperately needed an influx of cash to stay afloat. His only available source of money was his players, and so he offered the best of them to the New York Yankees, until then a perennial second division team. For a sum of $125,000 and a loan of more than $300,000, Ruth was sold to the Yankees on January 3. With the New York Yankees, in addition to hitting 54 home runs, smashing his year-old record, he hit .376 (4th in the league), drove in 137 runs and scored 150 (both best in the league) and his 150 walks contributed to him getting on base in more than half his plate appearances. He stole 14 bases and his slugging percentage (.847) set a record that would not be beaten for over 80 years (Barry Bonds eclipsed it in 2001). In 1921, he scored .376 in 152 games, drove in 171 runs and scored 177, and finished just percentage points below his 1920 figures for slugging and reaching base. He also broke the home run record for the third straight year, clouting 59 round trippers. Along with the pitching of Carl Mays, Waite Hoyt and Bob Shawkey, the bats of Ruth and Bob Meusel would carry the Yankees to their first ever World Series, a 5-3 loss to their NY rival Giants. Game 4 also saw Ruth hit his first post season home run. Ruth departure from the Yankees was acrimonious after the 1934 season, after it was clear he was not going to be made manager, which Ruth seemed to consider his right. At Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 25, 1935, Ruth hit his 714th and last home run, setting a baseball record that stood for 39 years. That June 2 he announced he was going to retire from the sport. Ruth was one of the five initial inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936. He took another coaching position with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938 in the hope of replacing Burleigh Grimes as manager, but retired again after the position went to Leo Durocher instead. Ruth was diagnosed with throat cancer in late 1946. He underwent an early form of radiation therapy, but died in New York City on August 16, 1948. The Babe Ruth Museum is located at his birthplace on 216 Emory Place in downtown Baltimore.