Babe Ruth: The Great Bambino

Babe Ruth, born George Herman Ruth, Jr., also known as the Great Bambino, was one of the greatest baseball players in the history of the game. He held the Most Homeruns record for multiple years. Babe Ruth was one of 8 children, however only he and one sister survived. Babe started playing at an adolescent age. He tried to be a stand out player to make his name attractive to the Major league baseball association. Babe Ruth was an ambidextrous batter.

At age 7, Ruth was sent to St. Mary Industrial Home, an institution for wayward boys. He and his sister, Mamie, were the only children that lived out of eight. Babe Ruth was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His parents were occupied with the running of a bar, therefore, he had ample opportunity

At the time, the Red Sox trained in Hot Springs, Arkansas. During this time period, Hot Springs was a gambling and golf mecca where baseball players rubbed shoulders with crime lords such as Al Capone, and hustlers like Titanic Thompson. “With broken clubs and lost balls taken into account, golf is a pretty expensive pastime for Babe Ruth,” quipped one news account. But, to his credit, Babe always took his penalty strokes and putted out. In spite of his image as a roly-poly powerhouse, he was a terrific athlete and light on his feet. In 1920, while in Los Angeles, playing a round of golf at Griffin Park, he learned that he had been sold to the New York Yankees for the sum total of $100,000. He was reported to have skipped his first practice with his new team, three months later, to play 18. His golf game improved over the years and by the 1930’s, in the late years of his baseball career, he played almost daily with Sammy Byrd, a substitute outfielder known as “Babe Ruth’s legs.” Byrd was the best golfer to have ever played Major League Baseball. After 8 years with the Yankees, he joined the PGA and proceeded to win 6 titles. During his baseball days, he tutored Ruth on the golf course, but Babe returned the advice in different

His daughter remembered how he would wake her up at dawn, cook breakfast for them and then head to the country club in Queens. In 1948, at the age of 53, he teed up and swung hard. He caught the ball between the screws and it flew high and true, only to land less than 100 yards away. The Babe stood on the tee and wept. A few months later, Grantland Rice wrote, “The greatest figure in the world of sport has ever known, has passed from the field.” “Game called on the account of darkness. Babe Ruth is dead.” Gone but not forgotten. Sixty-some years after his death, he is still one of the most famous names in all of