Lucey: Remembering Babe Ruth Day at Yankee Stadium
From SABR member Bill Lucey at The National Pastime Museum on April 23, 2015:
The National Pastime Museum recently asked its contributors: If you could go back in time, what baseball game would you most have liked to have attended in person?
I put some serious thought into the question. I decided it would have to be a game involving George Herman Ruth.
Like millions of others, I’ve always been fascinated by “the Bambino,” the “Sultan of Swat,” “the Jidge,” the “Colossus of Clout,” whatever your preferred handle. If Ruth wasn’t a real life person, I’m absolutely certain Hollywood would have cooked up a fictional character and called him the Babe.
Babe Ruth lived a life fit for fiction. At a young age he was tossed into a reform school in the dingiest part of town in south Baltimore, where he would catch the eye of a baseball scout. The scout catapulted him to a life of smashing baseballs farther and higher than ever thought imaginable. The Babe circled the bases in pigeon-toed fashion, winked to the bat boy on his way into the dugout after one of his many majestic blasts, and gestured with sharp military salutes to adoring fans during thunderous standing ovations. He smoked expensive cigars, drove flashy cars, attracted women like bees to honey, became a saloonkeeper’s best friend, and called everyone under age 40 “kid” and everyone else “doc.” He made more money than the president of the United States.
Read the full article here: http://www.thenationalpastimemuseum.com/article/remembering-babe-ruth-day-yankee-stadium
Originally published: April 23, 2015. Last Updated: April 23, 2015.