Sporting Greats – George Herman “Babe” Ruth – New York Yankees – 2007

Sporting Greats – George Herman “Babe” Ruth – New York Yankees – 2007

the greatest athletic feat in in the United States is to hit a home run It’s uh it’s it’s a wonderful moment where the ball goes off the playing field you know and and and everything kind of stops and the guy gets to celebrate and and that really didn’t exist before Babe Ruth He kind of invented the home run Nobody in the history of American sport has made the same impact that Babe Ruth made on the world of baseball The inventor of the home run A powerhouse who built the reputation of an entire club A larger than-l life figure who revolutionized his sport He was a phenomenon He blew it apart He blasted the baseball apart because there was no such thing as a home run He so towered above everyone There was no one in terms of sheer statistics and power that in in his era who came even close to him He was the first uh major media star in American life and he really transcended baseball Babe Ruth is considered the greatest ball player who ever lived I mean there was nobody who played the game better than he did [Music] At the turn of the 20th century the United States of America was a land of opportunity But as a new frontier without history it was also quick to embrace modernity and celebrity America needed real heroes It needed men like Babe Ruth America is a relatively young country and um we don’t have we don’t have like those folk stories like we don’t have leprechauns here and we don’t have spirits and we don’t have King Arthur in the round table We don’t have any of that stuff and we have tended to to take real life people and make them our folk heroes and our folk stories And uh Babe Ruth for sure is one of them He’s the biggest sports name in the history of the United States His personality and his charisma were probably even better than his baseball playing ability He had a uh a face that could easily be related to He had an everyman sort of quality about him He was um not at all removed uh from from regular life and in fact he had a humble origins which uh were a popular part of his success story Those humble beginnings in baseball can be traced to Baltimore an underprivileged port city on the east coast where George Herman Ruth was born in 1895 As a kid um he had it tough He did have it tough as a kid His father owned a bar and his mother seemed to have some mental issues and his mother died young and and his father died young too in in a barroom fight He was constantly getting into scrapes in this rather poor town He was ADHD I mean he they tried everything They used to wallop the heck out of them and nothing would would fix So they put him in St Mary’s which was almost like a com like it orphanage or reform school or both There was a lot of discipline and and it was tough living but it was like a baseball academy So they put a bat in his hand and that was the end of the story He was out there um morning you know rain shine afternoon he had a bat in his hand and by the time he left St Mary’s he could play every position perfectly He was playing um as a kid 12 and 13 years old He was playing over 200 baseball games a year which was phenomenal He was hitting 500 foot home runs in St Mary’s as a kid He was a phenomena His talents caught the eye of local club the Baltimore Orioles in 1914 It was there he earned his nickname Babe But just 5 months later major league giants the Boston Red Sox came calling And it wasn’t his hitting that interested them He was a really athletic guy He was about 6’2 um which was kind of large at the time and and he could throw the heck out of a baseball The thing not to lose sight of uh is that he was a tremendous pitcher He might have been a member of the baseball hall of fame had he never picked up a bat uh and become an outfielder in his life He could play every position So then they needed his bat and they made him play every day in Boston When he wasn’t pitching he was in the outfield When he was in the outfield he was pitching He was one tired boy He was hitting the ball out of the park So people started realizing wait a minute this guy is such a tremendous hitter Maybe he just should play the outfield His ability led the Red Sox to three World Series wins in 1915 1916 and 1918 But his impact stretched beyond winning pennants Baseball had been a low-scoring speedbased game Ruth was ushering in the so-called live ball era While the sport of baseball had been the national pastime since the middle of the 19th century he changed the game with the way that he hit the baseball Changed it into a much more high-scoring offensive game And this affected the game’s popularity uh dramatically They they taught you to swing down at the ball and to hit it into the ground and and hit it hard and hit it hit it into the outfield and you’d get to first base And hitting it up in the air meant that you were going to hit it to an outfielder and that would be an out And he came along with a different swing that he had perfected to swing upwards and he swung upwards but he he and he hit fly balls but he hit them so far that nobody could catch him The home run there was no such thing as a home run or as many When he was getting his first home runs one team collectively for the year had 11 That’s something to think about He had 20 and collectively for a year one team had together 11 So does that tell you the the impact that the home run had His form meant there was a growing list of admirers The recently formed New York Yankees headed the queue and Red Sox owner Harry Fris was willing to talk business He was the star of the Boston Red Sox until Harry Fris decided that he needed money more than he needed Babe Ruth I mean part of that also was that Babe was kind of a pain in the neck He was not your your meek guy Um he was often you know into one sort of small trouble or another He was always hitting Harry up for a little bit more money Um he was something of a pain in the neck And so part of it was that Harry decided that you know the huge sum of money he would get from the Yankees would help Also uh it would be nice to get Babe out of his hair Ruth joined the Yankees in 1919 and moving to New York would make him a star But the Yankees needed the Babe as much as he needed them Until his arrival they weren’t even the best team in New York When Babe Ruth was sold by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees the New York Yankees had never won a championship And uh almost immediately uh they were in the World Series and they won uh one within a couple of years of the Babe being there If you do it in New York it it takes on a lot more import New York was the place for him to be It was the combination of being a fabulous athlete and New York being the media capital of the country People ask me “What if he didn’t go from Boston What if he went to Oshkosh Wisconsin?” I’m going to tell you here and now I thoroughly believe it in my soul My mother believed it in her soul you would have heard from Babe from Oshkosh Wisconsin because he was that kind of guy The te the team didn’t define him He divi def defined the team In fact his home runs were saving baseball In 1920 it was revealed that Chicago White Sox players had taken money to throw the 1919 World Series It was known as the Black Sox scandal With the fans disillusioned baseball needed a hero The game needed a savior Uh after the Black Sox scandal Babe Ruth came along and Babe Ruth came along and the combination of his incredible hitting ability and his magnetic personality and charisma just would have been enough to overcome any kind of a scandal He was he was just a superstar before we used that word Uh that’s what he was He underlined that star status in 1920 Ruth hit an astonishing 54 home runs You know there are people who have broken his career home run record but no one has ever dominated the hitting game the way Babe Ruth did In 1920 Babe Ruth as an individual out hit 14 of the 16 teams in the major leagues with home runs The man hit a lot of home runs He hit he hit uh 40 home runs I think 10 or 11 seasons I mean the man was a powerhouse The balls he hit were so soft they actually wrap around the bat when you hit them And he was hitting 400 and 500t home runs Can you imagine the power behind that Look at the power in those hips See that’s where the power comes from See how he his legs his hips totally turned That’s why I said when I I’d swing big and I’d miss big Well he totally wrapped himself right around when he came around with that bat He actually had a callous on this hand this arm because he’d go all the way around and it would take his body all the way around And in 1916 and 1918 he was also swinging a 54 ouncez bat which is a tree I think the biggest one now is 36 36 I think I mean it’s not it’s not big at all And he was 54 ouncez bat That’s that’s how he did it There’s no team in any American sport more recognizable than the Yankees No baseball team have won the World Series more times But without Babe Ruth none of that would have been possible He made the New York Yankees the franchise they are today The early years was that he made them into a winner Starting in 1922 was their first pennant 1922 1923 1926 1927 1928 1932 Not only that but he those were seven pennants with the Yankees He was with three pennent winners with the Red Sox Total of 10 World Series years Amazing amazing record Now a full-time right fielder Ruth had made the game exciting high-scoring and powerbased In 1923 the Yankees built a new stadium to accommodate all those fans who wanted a glimpse of the babe You know if you look at any culture and you say one of the biggest buildings that that have been built by that culture you know they haven’t been cathedrals and stuff They’ve been all these arenas and and and ballparks and things like that And if you say who’s the patron saint of it all it’s it’s Babe Ruth uh Yankee Stadium you know way back then was built mainly because of him I don’t think there’s ever been an athlete in in any sport who has been so revolutionary in the sense of attracting so many people Ruth had drawing power Ruth was a star Yankee Stadium was always referred to as the house that Ruth built They built it because the stadium they were playing in borrowed or rented stadium that the New York Giants played in was just not large enough to hold all the fans that that Babe Ruth was bringing along So they built the stadium in 1923 Babe Ruth hits the first home run in the stadium The Yankees win the World Series that year uh against the Giants That’s the point where he takes over the baseball world completely Babe Ruth had become king of New York He was America’s first ever real sporting celebrity He was just at at that time the biggest star in American life and really the template for uh the American culture of celebrity He is quite likely the most photographed individual in American history Marilyn Monroe perhaps or Elvis Presley but but at least as big as those people uh if not bigger in American culture But here was an accessible star generous humorous and down to earth And this everyman personality allowed Americans to identify with the babe He looked like uh someone you could chat with on the street corner And in fact you could He never lost that common touch uh even at the heights of his fame And one day he’d be speaking to the president of the United States rather informally I might add Uh in fact one day he looked at the president and he said “Hot as hell ain’t it press?” Um and the next day he’d be talking to you or me on the street corner and uh just the same demeanor What you saw was what you got Talking to the fans being around the fans was second nature to him It wasn’t a pressure It was never a pressure with his fans When he was doing something he didn’t do it exclusively He’d say “Hey come on I’m going on a ride Come with me.” And he’d bring you with him That’s why he’s beloved He wasn’t exclusive He was always inclusive As Ruth became a household name the US was experiencing a time of economic boom And the world’s biggest baseball star would personify the roaring 20s He hit his stride as a baseball player in 1919 just as the roaring 20s or the jazz age were taking off And he was made for that He just had this huge huge personality He had an appetite for life He ate large He drank large He womanized large He he did everything large You know all the men wanted to be him All the women wanted to sleep with him Yeah The funny thing about Ruth is that the real person in the myth is sort of coincided That was Babe Ruth Well they didn’t call it the Roaring 20s for nothing And Babe was sat sat himself right in the middle of it Yeah it was uh you know um flappers and he did have girls galore Babe was accepted in every speak easy in New York He knew all the the kingpins and the not so kingpins and he he didn’t discriminate Babe knew everybody Everybody wanted to know Babe You know if Babe came over and said “How you doing kid?” You made it That’s all he had to say “How you doing kid?” And it was like everybody would walk on water My mother said it was amazing [Music] But the fast living off the pitch was affecting Ruth’s game Overweight and blighted by injury in 1925 he suffered his worst season with just 25 home runs from 98 games He looked like um like he’d really let himself go and and that his bad living was going to get to him and uh he spotted that and he went out and got a personal trainer Another first thing Babe vowed that he would change and change he did He never did that again He never did He never he never thought of himself bigger than the game or bigger than his fans The vigorous training regime paid off 47 home runs followed in 1926 and the Yankees were back in a World Series final It was his love of baseball that maintained his position at the top Most people think that he he just played for the Yankees and then was a degenerate the rest of the time but he wasn’t a degenerate the rest of the time He as soon as the season ended he was off on these barnstorming tours Babe Ruth probably played baseball against a larger percent of the population than any baseball player who’s come since By 1927 the babe was at his best He slugged the Yankees towards another World Series crown with 60 home runs a season record that would last for 34 years I think his uh his peak was uh probably uh 1927 the year that he hit 60 homers The 1927 Yankees are considered by many historians to be the best uh baseball team of all time The Yankees won another World Series in 1928 but within a year America and the rest of the world entered a period of economic crisis Even in those times of depression though Ruth remained an inspirational figure Despite being the game’s biggest earner few begrudged him that status He was still Babe Ruth man of the people when he earned 80,000 which was a record amount someone said to him babe you know you’re earning more money than President Hoover and he said well I had a better year than him I mean that was so typical of Babe Ruth humor what’s important to know about him in that era is that he was a tremendous symbol of hope uh for Americans in part because he continued to do things that uh nobody had ever done on a baseball field before and in part because he made a lot of money uh during that time when a lot of people weren’t making a lot of money So he was sort of a um sort of a symbol of normaly Uh the uh uh idea that we would hope to return to economic boom times and uh you know if Babe Ruth was still all right maybe we would all still be all right during the Great Depression Although now in the twilight of his career Ruth enjoyed one final triumph in the 1932 World Series against the Chicago Cubs In game three after two strikes Ruth allegedly pointed to where he was going to hit the next pitch He smashed the ball out of the ground It became known as the cold shot The Yankees went on to win But the debates about that home run still rages Did he point Yes he pointed because he did it many many times He’d say “Hey Jack what side of the uh scoreboard did so and so hit it?” “Oh you hit it to the right babe.” “Okay I’mma hit to the left.” And you go out and hit it to the left You know it just you know just he he knew the ball He knew what he could do with it It’s a Ruthian thing to do to predict that you’re going to hit a home run and to do it on the very next pitch And it doesn’t matter really whether he did it or not What matters is we either think he did it or we want to believe that he did it That home run would be his final hit in a World Series As the depression worsened so did Ruth’s form In February 1935 he was sold to the Boston Braves and his 15-year love affair with New York and the Yankees had come to an end His uh career does sort of track with American history Of course he has his you know some very very great success prior to the stock market crash in 1929 and then as the depression worsens and deepens in the early 30s 1932 1933 Babe is starting to see the beginning of the end uh as a player I mean he had a fabulous year in 1932 and yet he was pretty much out of baseball in 1935 Fittingly Ruth departed with three home runs in one of his final games for the Braves numbers 712 713 and 714 Just a week later in May 1935 he announced his retirement longing of a return to his beloved Yankees as their manager And for whatever reason uh Jacob Rupert the owner of the Yankees didn’t see uh the managerial um stuff in Babe Ruth and and didn’t want to uh try to move him into that sort of a position He didn’t want a petulant child to be the manager of the Yankees And uh so I I think the personal relationship between the two of them probably probably is what what stopped any chances he had His real dream was to manage the Yankees and he probably would have done a decent job You know he would have matur you know matured He wouldn’t have been a 25year-old anymore He’d have been you know 45 or 50 Um but the answer was uh babe my boy you can’t manage yourself you know why would you think that we would hire you to manage our ball players It made him bitter you know after after doing such great things for the Yankees and making uh Colonel Roert so much money Uh here he’s being shunted aside Made him rather bitter He was devastated My mother said he never got over it Um he used to sit by the radio and call the plays before they happened She said uh he he was so despondent and uh depressed Baseball is his life’s blood And here baseball was saying “Sorry we don’t want you babe.” Ruth struggled without baseball in his life The game was all he’d known But his staff failed to fade Despite no longer taking an active role in the game he was idolized wherever he went The thing that happens with with athletes is is that you have you have two deaths you know I mean you have the death of your career and then you have your own death What do you do if you’ve been Babe Ruth Where do you go How do you how do you recreate that excitement um that you had when every day you went and 60,000 people cheered you and called your name Just a decade after retiring he became stricken with cancer and a shadow of the figure he once was But even then Babe Ruth was still giving all of himself to the American people right until the very end There’s been so many lovely things said about me and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to thank everybody when he went away [Applause] Like 20 minutes before he died he signed an autograph for a male nurse He said “You better get it now cuz you’re not going to get it if you don’t get it now.” The poignency is there I mean uh um uh getting sick and and uh approaching death far too early Um and yet still being Babe Ruth being this uh incredible uh media personality and uh and real personality in American uh culture he even then he still had it when he walked onto that field It’s just a it gives you goosebumps to to think about it On August the 16th 1948 Babe Ruth died aged just 53 America mourned its greatest sporting hero People were very very distraught The thing people loved him I don’t know of anyone who didn’t love Babe Ruth It was just uh if you like baseball he was the the icon And then when he died there were thousands of people showed up to honor him Very I can’t think of any person other than perhaps some beloved president or something who had that kind of following Ruth’s legacy can be seen across America today more than a century after he picked up a baseball bat in Baltimore His record of 714 career home runs stood for nearly 40 years He led the league in home runs scored 11 times and in runs scored eight times A pioneer a record breaker and an all-American hero Babe Ruth lives on And still today when uh young kids come into the Baseball Hall of Fame one of their first questions is where’s the Babe Ruth stuff Uh he hasn’t played a Major League Baseball game since 1935 And kids are walking in today wanting to know about him Uh so he’s as big as it gets in baseball and uh for a long time was as big as it could get in America Certainly the rest of the people from his generation have pretty well been forgotten I don’t hear anybody talking about Hon Wagner very much or Tai Cobb very much Um I think Babe Ruth will always be with us It’s probably oral tradition more than anything Fathers tell their sons and then sons grow up and tell their sons It is kind of an amazing thing You can go in in um taverns in the United States and there’ll be pictures of Babe Ruth as often as there’d be pictures of of any of today’s athletes I think he just struck a chord in people and in that that the way he lived and the way he looked he he just sent the benchmark for for success in athletics I think in the United States [Music]

Sporting Greats – George Herman “Babe” Ruth – New York Yankees – 2007