Fifty Years After His Death, Babe Ruth Sill Captivates as Man, Myth, Legend

Almost make-believe except he was authentic, magnetic, entertaining, exploding with viatality and colorfully animated without knowing it. Yes, and susceptible to all the weaknesses of humankind while endowed with overpowering skills that set him apart as baseball’s most accomplished player of all-time.

His presence created an almost mythical yet mystical impact on America that no singular athlete, before or since, has been able to command. A combination of ability, personality and boisterous charm that drew crowds until his dying day and, yes, even beyond, because 6,600 mourners attended his funeral and another 75,000 were standing in the streets under an oppresive summer sky that was dripping rain, while paying silent tribute as the cortege made its way from New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Babe Ruth died 50 years ago today, on Aug. 16, 1948, at 8:01 pm, age 53, after a consoling visit from a priest and making peace with his Maker. He had been a convert to Catholicism while attending Baltimore’s St. Mary’s Industrial School. The cause of his death was cancer of the nasal passages but only weeks before he looked up at a visitor, the esteemed Connie Mack, and said, ‘Mr. Mack, I think the termites got me.’

A child of God. Playful. Laughing. Clowning. Uninhibited. Unsophisticated. Riding a merry-go-round through a life that seemed almost a non-stop trip to fantasyland. He was Babe Ruth. No rags-to-riches story born of fiction or fact ever compared to his. Though lacking formal education, he had an intellect that caused psychologists at Columbia University to say his IQ, although not as high as his batting average, put him in the top 10 percent of Americans. His aptitude was exceptional and the way he signed his name carried a grace within the simplicity of his penmanship.

More books, movies and documentaries have been produced about his life than any athlete in history. The Baltimore Orioles of the International League signed him without ever seeing him play, but based their interest and trust on merely what they had heard.

“He’s the big kid sliding on the ice,” the Orioles were told when they visited St. Mary’s in early February of 1914. They signed him to a contract for $600 for the season and sent him off to spring training at Fayetteville, N.C. In his pocket was the princely sum of 11 cents. He had never been on a train, visited a restaurant, stayed in a hotel or ridden an elevator.

He was George Herman Ruth, as German on both sides of his family as weiner schnitzel. It was alleged he had Negro blood in his veins but this wasn’t true. For the better part of his life, he thought he was a year older than he was, having been born in 1895.

Had the Orioles not found Ruth at St. Mary’s, where his parents took him at age 7 to be placed in the care of the Xaverian Brothers, it’s likely he would have been lost to professional baseball since scouting was not the sophisticated business it became. The trade he learned in school was that of a shirt-maker but because he could throw a ball with power and precision, the Orioles decided to give him a pitching trial.

He was naive, unexposed to the wonders of the world that awaited as he left the protection and discipline of St. Mary’s and stepped into a baseball environment. Veteran players in his first training camp wondered who he was and the answer they got was he’s one of “Dunie’s babes”, meaning a protege of team Owner-Manager-General Manager Jack Dunn. Forever after he was Babe Ruth.

We’ve conjectured that the reason he had trouble remembering proper names was because in an orphanage with 800 other boys nicknames were the true term of recognition. Like Reds, Fats, Rubber Belly, Funny Ears, Stinky, Big Nose, Mickey, Harp, Scotty, Heinie, Dago and other ethnic terms of the times.

With the New York Yankees, his closesst chums were Irish Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri. Ruth once took Lazzeri to a radio interview when he was making an appeal for voters to support Al Smith for president. At one interval during the broadcast, he turned to his pal, Lazzeri, and startled the audience by asking, “Hey Tony tell everybody who all the Wops are going to vote for?” Some listeners were offended but Tony didn’t take exception because he knew the Babe was his friend and, besides, he called him that all the time.

Ruth was popular with teammates, rival players, sports writers and even people who didn’t know a baseball from a cantaloupe. They found him to be a study, something astonishing. A type they had never seen before. Also accomodating and effusive. The Babe was so spontaneous there was no way to even guess what he might do next--be it with bat in hand or expressing himself in conversation.

He once attended a dinner to help a charitable undertaking at the Waldorf-Astoria and a record amount of money was raised, mainly because Ruth was there. When it was over Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the sponsor, thanked him profusely. The Babe was uncomfortable with this shower of gratitude. Finally, he said, “Oh, . . . lady, I’d do it for anybody.”

In Baltimore, where the saga of Ruth began, he was exclusively a pitcher and Dunn was so up against it he had to sell Ruth to the Boston Red Sox halfway through his rookie season of 1914 because of competition put upon him in Baltimore by the rival Federal League.

The next year, his second season in baseball, a rookie with Boston, he won 18 and lost 8 as a pitcher. When he came home to Baltimore that fall, he played in a game for a community team in Irvington against Catonsville. Consider the chance he was taking. A possible injury in what was almost a pick-up game and he might never have played again.

But the Babe was there to enjoy himself. He struck out seven of nine batters in the first three innings. Then the catcher broke his hand. So the Babe put on the chest protector, shin guards and mask, pulled a right-handed catcher’s mitt on his opposite hand and caught the rest of the way.

“Watching him hit was like experiencing a dramatic moment in the theater,” said Joe Cascarella, who pitched against him in the American League. “Or put another way it was as if the pitcher facing him was nothing more than a mere puppet.”

Ruth was the complete player, a better than average outfielder, strong arm, good base runner and a picture to behold when he slid into a base. He once came to Baltimore, while with the Red Sox for two exhibitions and hit four straight home runs at Oriole Park and the next day he was up twice and two more homers--leaving the game because the regular season would soon open and the Red Sox wanted him to have a fresh arm. Six for six in home runs. A homecoming to remember.

When he left baseball he had set 206 records, an incredulous achievement. Henry Aaron surpassed him in career home runs but imagine what Ruth would have done if he logged all the at-bats Aaron had, which came to 3,965 more than Ruth. If Ruth’s homer ratio were to be equated to Aaron’s plate appearances it’s calculated he wold have finished with 1,05l home runs.

In the 50 years since his death there hasn’t been any performer or personality to replace him. An original. Unequaled. Unmatched. Unsurpassed.