Babe Ruth (1895–1948)

With due respect to baseball stars from Jackie Robinson (1919–1972; see entry under 1940s—Sports and Games in volume 3) to Mickey Mantle (1931–1995) to Mark McGwire (1963—), Babe Ruth is without doubt the most celebrated baseball (see entry under 1900s—Sports and Games in volume 1) hero of the twentieth century.

For over two decades beginning in 1914, George Herman Ruth—whose nicknames included "The Bambino" and "The Sultan of Swat"—ruled the world of baseball. His most prominent records have been broken. His record of sixty home runs in a season in 1927 was eclipsed thirty-four years later by Roger Maris (1934–1985) and broken yet again by McGwire and Sammy Sosa (1968–) in 1998 and Barry Bonds (1964–) in 2001. Ruth's career record of 714 round-trippers was bested in the early 1970s by Hank Aaron (1934–). Yet Ruth remains the most immortal of all baseball immortals for many reasons. His larger-than-life presence, his lovable personality, and his Hall of Fame ability as a pitcher as well as a home-run basher all figure in his reputation. The most significant reason, though, is his single-handed rescue of baseball in the wake of the Black Sox gambling scandal that forever tainted the 1919 World Series, leading to a questioning of the game's integrity by a wary public. In this regard, Ruth was as much a key to the sport's resurgence during the 1920s as the home run derby in 1998 between McGwire and Sosa was to its renewed popularity in the wake of the 1994 baseball strike.

—Rob Edelman

For More Information

Jacobs, William Jay. They Shaped the Game: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1994.

Macht, Norman L. Babe Ruth. New York: Chelsea House, 1991.

Miller, Ernestine. The Babe Book: Baseball's Greatest Legend Remembered. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2000.

Ruth, George Herman. Babe Ruth's Own Book of Baseball. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.