In this photo, colorized by Ahmet Asar, Babe Ruth walks on the field on June 13, 1948 to deliver his “Farewell to Baseball Speech.” Ruth, suffering from cancer, had lost significant weight, and was using a baseball bat for support as he walked on the field. The original, taken by Nat Fein, won a Pulitzer Prize.
Original image by Nat Fein. Colorized: (Ahmed Azar).
Babe Ruth, nicknamed “The Bambino” and “The Sultan of Swat” was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 6, 1895. At the age of seven, he was sent to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, where he spent much of the next 12 years. Although the details of why he was sent there are sparse, he was recorded as “incorrigible.” It was here that he began playing baseball. When he was 18, in 1913, he was allowed to start leaving the premises to play on community teams. Then, in 1914, he signed with the minor league Baltimore Orioles, which were part of the International League and owned and managed by Jack Dunn. When Dunn was facing financial problems, he had to sell some of his best players; Ruth was then sold to the Boston Red Sox and on July 11, reported to the team. beginning his 22-season career in the majors, from 1914-1935.
A Pitcher Who Wanted More Game time
Babe Ruth in 1918. Spource: (Library of Congress/Wikipedia).
Although he started his 22-season career in the majors, which stretched from 1914-1935 as a left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, he found his fame in the outfield for the New York Yankees. While pitching for the Red Sox, he won 23 games in a season twice, but he wanted to play every day, and he converted to playing as an outfielder. He hit his first homerun before becoming an outfielder; the homerun happened in a game against the Yankees on May 6, 1915, while still a pitcher and it was only his 18th at-bat. The conversion happened gradually, as he was still pitching in some games; in the 1919 season, he pitched in 17 out of 130 games he played, and he ended the season with an 8-5 record. That year, as he played regularly, he broke the single-season home run record. After that record breaking season, Harry Frazee, the owner of the Red Sox, sold Ruth to the Yankees for $100,000, the largest sum ever paid at that point. This began the “Curse of the Bambino” superstition related to the Red Sox 86-year championship drought. With Ruth’s help, the Yankees won seven American League pennants and four World Series championships. Ruth also helped to boost baseball’s popularity, transforming it from a low scoring game of strategy into a sport where the home run played an important role.
Breaking Records As A Pitcher And A Batter
In 1920 with Shoeless Joe Jackson. Source: (New York Daily News/Wikipedia).
He had several pitching records, but he established many MLB batting records. He had 714 career home runs, 2,213 RBIs, 2,062 bases on balls, a slugging percentage of .690, and an OPS of 1.164. As of 2021, his slugging record and his OPS still stood as the records.
Retiring From Baseball
Although Ruth was known for his skill on the field, he also became know for his exploits there, as well as his drinking and womanizing. His years of hard living really started to catch up with him by his final year with the Yankees. In 1934, that final year wearing New York pinstripes, he could no longer field or run. Before this season, he began to try to land a job managing a team. While on a barnstorming tour, he was traded to the Boston Braves, where he was supposed to be the vice president of the team. His performance continued to decline while playing for the team. After playing only 28 games with the Boston Braves, he retired from baseball on May 25, 1935 with his lowest batting average as a position player. In 1938, he was the first base coach for the Los Angeles Dodgers and this would be his final time working in any capacity in baseball. He became one of the first five inaugural members into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He also made personal appearances to advance the war effort during World War II. His final appearance as a player at Yankee Stadium came during one of these appearances, in a 1943 exhibition for the Army-Navy Relief Fund. During this appearance, after hitting a fly ball which curved foul, he ran the bases anyway. He made one final attempt to get a job in baseball with the Yankees in 1946, the same year he became ill with nasopharyngeal cancer in 1946.
A Last Goodbye
His voice was raspy as his illness overcame him when he delivered his farewell speech on April 27, 1947.
“Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
You know how bad my voice sounds -- well it feels just as bad.
You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth. That means the boys.
And after you're a boy and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in your national pastime, the only real game -- I think -- in the world, baseball.
As a rule, some people think if you give them a football, or a baseball, or something like that -- naturally they're athletes right away.
But you can't do that in baseball.
You've gotta start from way down [at] the bottom, when you're six or seven years of age. You can't wait until you're fifteen or sixteen. You gotta let it grow up with you. And if you're successful, and you try hard enough, you're bound to come out on top -- just like these boys have come to the top now.
There's been so many lovely things said about me, and I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to thank everybody.
Thank you.”
On August 16, 1948, Babe Ruth died in his sleep. 77,000 people filed past his open casket in the “the House that Ruth built,” where it remained on display for two days.