The Life Of Babe Ruth Essay Research

The Life Of Babe Ruth Essay, Research Paper

The Life Of Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth, born George Ruth, Jr., is considered by many to be the

greatest baseball player of all time. Everybody knows how great a hitter Babe

was and how he virtually invented the home run. Not everybody knows how great

of a pitcher Babe was, even though he was one of the best left-handed pitchers

of all time. Babe had a 92 and 44 record, 67.6%, and a 2.24 career earned- run

average in 163 games pitched. Not many career .342 hitters that averaged a home

run every 11.8 at bats can say that.

George Ruth, Jr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on February 6, 1895,

son of George Herman Ruth, Sr. and Kate Ruth. George took the name of Herman at

his confirmation since it was his father’s middle name and the name of his

friend at St.Mary’s Industrial School, Brother Herman. Ruth says he had a .

rotten start. in life; he spent his childhood days on the streets and piers of

Baltimore. He led a rather lawless life, his parents were medium-poor and he

was mainly on his own.

All this changed when Ruth entered St.Mary’s Industrial School at the

age of eight. Ruth, even though he didn’t realize it, had come in to a good

thing. Brother Matthais took young Ruth under his wing and taught him to read,

write, play baseball, do needle work, and right from wrong. Ruth showed a

startling natural talent with a baseball bat, so Brother Matthais tried to round

young George into a complete baseball player by teaching him to pitch and field.

Ruth says that, .Brother Matthais was the greatest man I ever knew.. Ruth was

taught to make shirts and became quite good at it, he boasted that he could sew

a shirt in less than 15 minutes.

Ruth never had to use this skill because he was discharged from

St.Mary’s School on February 27, 1914 to join the Baltimore Orioles baseball

team of the American League. Ruth was paid a salary of $600 to play in the

International League, one step below the major league, on an Orioles affiliate

team. The team went to Fayettville for spring training and Ruth showed raw

talent and didn’t need much formal training but needed lots of controlled

practice. Coach Sam Steinman warned the veterans to go easy with the rookie

Ruth, he said, .He’s one of Jack Dunn’s babes.. Journalist Roger Pippen asked

Steinman to explain, Steinman said out of all the players in camp Ruth was the

biggest and most promising babe of the lot. The players heard this and the name

stuck. Babe Ruth. At first George thought the name, Babe, was a joke, but

after a while it became like a proper name, and everybody called him Babe.

After an impressive showing in the International League, Babe and the

rest of the Oriole team were put up for sale. The Boston Red Sox bought Babe

and he saw his first major league action on July 11,1914, as he took the mound

against the Cleveland Naps. Babe ended up winning the game 4-3 after pitching

seven innings and letting up only three runs on five hits. The Red Sox sent

Ruth to the International League to play on the Providence team, to get some

more experience. At Providence, Ruth had a record of 11 wins and 2 loses. On

September 5, Ruth won a game 9-0, only letting up one hit, but more

significantly he hit his first and only minor league home run.

The Red Sox brought Ruth back up after the Providence team won the

pennant and Ruth pitched in one game without decision. While in Boston, Ruth

almost always went to Landers coffee shop and his usual waitress was a girl

named Helen Woodford. During breakfast one morning Ruth looked up at Helen and

said, .How about you and me getting married, hon.. After thinking it over for

a couple of minutes, Helen accepted his proposal. After the baseball season,

Babe and Helen got married in St. Paul’s Church, Ellicott City, Maryland, on

October 17,1914. Helen Woodford Ruth stayed out of the public eye and was known

as the only person in Boston to still call Babe by his proper name, George.

The Red Sox roster of 1915 included Babe Ruth’s name. Never again did

it appear on a minor league roster. Babe Ruth has made his way to the major

leagues quickly and would stay there for a long time. Babe had one of his best

overall seasons as a pitcher going 18-6, winning 75% of his games, and racking

up an outstanding 2.44 earned run average (era). Ruth went 23-12 with a career

best 1.75 era the following year, 23-13 the year after that. In 1918-19 Babe

only pitched in a combined 37 games with a 21-12 record in his last seasons as

mainly a pitcher. Between 1915 and 1919, Babe pitched 1,167 innings in 154

games with a record of 85 wins and 43 losses.

At the start of the 1919 season, Ruth started in right field but moved

to center after Duffy Lewis switched to right. Lewis accused Ruth of having

little defensive ability in the outfield. To Lewis’ dismay, Ruth ended up be

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