On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Captain C
As the 1920 season began, baseball was reeling from the emerging Black Sox scandal, 8 members of the Chicago White Sox having taking money from gamblers (led by Arnold Rothstein) to throw the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. With public confidence in the game and its integrity flagging, baseball needed a hero. And it got one, in spades. One of the great young lefty pitchers of the teens, one who had led the Red Sox to three World Series titles in 4 years, had been converted to a right fielder due to his even more prodigious hitting talent.
Then, after the 1919 season, the owner of the Red Sox sold this player to the Yankees for $100,000 (the highest total at the time), where he became one of the greatest sluggers the game has ever known. I am referring to, of course, Babe Ruth, who was not only one of the greatest players of all time, but was one of the first modern media sensations, coming along right as radio and modern advertising and marketing began their ascent. This set is devoted to the Babe, one of the two most important players in MLB history (the other being Jackie Robinson).
Before Babe Ruth was baseball’s first great slugger, he was one of the top young left-handed pitchers in the game, and had he continued along this path without injury, would likely have wound up in the Hall of Fame for his pitching talents. He helped pitch the Red Sox to 3 World Series in 4 years, as one of their aces (though by 1918 he was also playing outfield to get his excellent bat into the lineup more often). He wound up with a 94-46 record and a 2.28 ERA to go with all of his hitting records
In 1920, the Babe’s contract was sold to the Yankees, most likely to finance one of Red Sox owner Harry Frazee’s musicals or plays (though probably not ‘No No, Nanette’ which apparently opened years later). This is said to have induced the Curse of the Bambino, by which the Red Sox did not win another World Series until 2004, 86 years after their last one with the Babe.
Babe Ruth was one of the first great media stars, as the roaring ’20s saw the birth and growth of the radio industry and the explosion of the movie industry (especially with talkies in 1927). Note the sheet music on the right, as many households still had a piano and someone who could play it.
While the Babe earned his reputation as a partier, carouser, and gourmand, he was also very much a true friend to children, basking in their attention and giving them lots of his time.
More Babe Ruth paraphernalia, including underwear.
One of the bats the Babe used in his record-breaking season of 1927, when he became the first major leaguer to hit 60 home runs in a season (the previous record being his own 59 in 1921). Ruth, and fellow slugger Lou Gehrig were the core of this team, known as Murderers’ Row for their otherworldly offensive talent and considered perhaps the greatest team of all time. They won 110 games that year, and swept the Pirates in 4 games in the World Series.
How crazy was this season for the Babe? He out-homered every other team in the league by himself! The Philadelphia A’s had the second highest team home run total after the Yankees (158), with 56 total home runs. This was the second time he accomplished this feat: in 1920 he hit a then-record 54 (breaking his own record of 29 from the previous year) and the #2 AL team in home runs was the St. Louis Browns, who had 50.
One of the Babe’s uniforms. He was a large man.
The Babe’s career lasted through 1935 (when he played a partial season with the Boston Braves after being released by the Yankees). Afterwards, he coached a few years, but never got a manager’s job. In 1948, he died at the age of 53 from cancer; as this exhibit shows he received experimental treatments, and seemed glad to help in the effort to advance cancer therapy (though apparently the fact that he actually had cancer was withheld from him).
Back in the ’20s most ballplayers didn’t make much money, and did barnstorming tours after the season to augment their income. Even the stars would do this; in 1927, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig led two teams on a barnstorming tour of America.
Trivia Man
Thanks
Worth noting Babe had a hard childhood himself, IIRC raised in a Baltimore orphanage. He remembered those days well and went out of his way to connect with forgotten children,
Trivia Man
Never been, id like to visit the Hall someday. Hopefully in the slow season because it like to read as many exhibits as i can and crowds make that more awkward.
waspuppet
How pervasive was the notion of a Curse of the Bambino really? I grew up in New England, and of course it was known that they hadn’t won a World Series in the decades since selling Ruth, but the first time I ever heard about a curse was when the book Curse of the Bambino came out in the late 80s. It’s one of those books that everyone refers to but I’m one of like 15 people who actually read it, and it makes a pretty thorough case that there was no such thing. Am I wrong or unusual in this?
Tenar Arha
I knew about his death from cancer, didn’t about their experimental treatment.🥺
jonas
@Tenar Arha: Yeah, I read somewhere a while back that he was one of the first patients to receive modern chemotherapy for cancer. It looked for a while like it had worked, but then it came back. He was only 53 — too soon.
3Sice
@Trivia Man:
Disposable children.
We’re not going back…
3Sice
@waspuppet:
It is the sort of junk beat writers go with when a team is out of contention in July.
RIP Fernando Valenzuela.
Captain C
@3Sice:
Or broadcast announcers when it’s already a blowout in the 4th inning.
Gone too soon. I saw him pitch against Doc in 1985. The Dodgers won, and then Doc reeled off 14 straight wins on his way to 24-4.
Captain C
@Trivia Man: April was a pretty good time; decent weather and the museum wasn’t super full. The library was, however, overrun by a sabermetrics convention.