Babe Ruth

George Herman Ruth, (b. February 6, 1895, d. August 16, 1948), better known as Babe Ruth, also commonly known by the nicknames The Bambino and The Sultan of Swat, was an American baseball player and United States national icon. He was one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and he was the first player to hit over 30, 40 and 50 home runs in one season. His record of 60 home runs in the 1927 season stood for 34 years until it was broken by Roger Maris in 1961. He also was a member of the original American League All-Star team in 1933. In 1998, The Sporting News named Ruth as Number One in its list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players."

Trivia

For the first 40 years of his life many people, Ruth included, believed his birthdate to have been February 7, 1894. Most contemporary accounts, therefore, will contain inaccurate accounts of Ruth's age.

Related Topics:
February 7 - 1894

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Ruth was a member of the Roman Catholic fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus.

Related Topics:
Roman Catholic - Knights of Columbus

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He threw and batted lefthanded, but wrote righthanded.

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In her book, "My Dad, The Babe," his adopted daughter Dorothy claimed she was his biological child, the product of an affair between Ruth and a long-time family friend.

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In 1929, the Yankees became the first team to regularly use uniform numbers (the Cleveland Indians used them briefly in 1916). Since Ruth batted third in the order, he was assigned number 3. Eventually, uniform numbers were associated with players without regard to the batting order. The Yankees retired Ruth's number "3" on June 13, 1948. The first number the Yankees had retired was Lou Gehrig's number "4".

Related Topics:
1929 - Cleveland Indians - 1916 - Lou Gehrig

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Ruth's wife Claire was a cousin of baseball slugger Johnny Mize.

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Ruth's 1919 contract that sent him from Boston to New York was auctioned off for $996,000 at a Sotheby's auction on June 10, 2005. Most of the money went to an organization that fights world hunger.

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Total number of homeruns would be 715 if Ruth were credited with a game-winning home run he hit in 1918 that rules of that time rated as only a triple because the winning run was scored by a runner on first base.

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Ruth made a cameo appearance playing himself in the Harold Lloyd silent film, "Speedy" (1928).

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In the early 1990s, biographical films were released about Ruth in consecutive years.

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• Babe Ruth was a 1991 made-for_TV movie, starring Stephen Lang. It was notable for featuring Pete Rose as Ty Cobb. It also won an Emmy for costuming.
• The Babe was a 1992 theatrical film, starring John Goodman, which garnered rather more publicity, in part due to Goodman's effective performance along with his TV stardom at the time.

It is a baseball myth that the Yankees wearing of pinstripes began when Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert wanted to minimize Ruth's increasing girth. The Yankees, then called the Highlanders, began wearing pinstripes in 1912. The Yankees discontiued them for two years, but they brought back their pinstripes in 1915 and have worn them since.

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In 1918, Babe's father George, Sr. was killed when intervening in another family's dispute at his tavern. Angry at all the noise one family was making one night, George Sr. got into a fight outside his tavern with one of the family members. During the scuffle, George, Sr. fell and suffered a fatal head injury.

Related Topics:
1918 - Tavern - Head

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