May 7, 2024 • 38 mins
Embark on a captivating journey through the life of the legendary Babe Ruth, from his humble beginnings in Pig Town to his towering fame in American baseball. Dive deep into the story behind his iconic status, dispelling myths and revealing the influences that shaped him early on. Explore the man behind the legend, tracing his roots from Pig Town to the pivotal moment he signed his first professional contract.
🌟Babe Ruth: The Man. The Myth. The Legend⚾️
Our narrative delves into the gritty world of early 20th-century baseball, uncovering the forces that propelled Ruth from the minor leagues to the Yankees. Discover intimate details of his life, including his unconventional wedding and his affection for children, offering a glimpse into the private side of this public figure.
⚾️A Legend's Lasting Impact on Baseball History🏆
Concluding our journey, we reflect on Babe Ruth's monumental impact, from the frenzy of his fame to his lasting influence on the Yankees and the sport itself. Through personal stories and historical insights, we paint a vivid picture of Ruth's enduring legacy, echoing through the annals of baseball history.
🔗Episode Links
Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum: https://baberuthmuseum.org/
Curator's Choice - A podcast for history nerds and museum lovers
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, I'm Ayla Sparks and this is Curator's Choice, a
podcast for history nerds andmuseum lovers.
From ancient relics to modernmarvels, each episode of this
show features a new museum and acurator's choice of some
amazing artifacts housed there.
These guardians of history willshare insights, anecdotes and
the often untold stories thatbreathe life into the artifacts
(00:29):
they protect.
Thanks for tuning in to thisMighty Oak Media production and
enjoy the show.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Babe Ruth is probably the most celebrated sports name
in at least American sportshistory.
He's the big name.
I taught a college course for23 years and, as a way to
identify what I did for a realjob, I would ask my students the
first night of class how manyever heard of Babe Ruth.
(00:56):
Everybody would raise theirhand.
I would branch out a little bit.
How many have heard this is1989.
How many have heard of BrooksRobinson?
How many have heard of CalRipken?
How many have heard this is1989, how many have heard of
Brooks Robinson?
How many have heard of CalRipken?
How many have heard of DorothyHamill, et cetera?
As the years went by, the handscame up for Babe Ruth.
Others faded away.
Even Brooks Robinson faded away.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I don't recognize any of those other names.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, it was like pretty amazing.
Until the last semester Itaught and one kid did not raise
his hand and I said where areyou from?
And he goes Nairobi.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Okay, you could have passed, but anyway.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So Babe Ruth, a very famous name.
He is an American icon.
How did he get to be that?
Where did he come from?
He came from the waterfront ofBaltimore, where we are right
now, and he was born at 216Emory Street in southwest
Baltimore.
That's the building that we'rein right now.
This was the home of hismaternal grandparents, Because
(01:58):
Kate Ruth, the mommy, and Georgethe father.
They were saloon keepers andshe didn't want to give birth in
a saloon, so she came home toMommy and Daddy's house and gave
birth here.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Actually in the house .
Speaker 2 (02:11):
In the house.
Wow, most children were born inthe house, which is when you
see the bedroom where he wasborn and when children anybody
sees that bedroom.
We explain that this is whereAmericans, or probably
throughout the world people,were born at home with the help
of midwives.
So Kate's midwife was MinnieGraff, so she helped with the
(02:31):
delivery.
She was the first of.
She gave birth to eightchildren here and six died in a
childbirth or early infancy.
Only a sister and babe survived.
I met the sister many yearslater at Mamie and she was a
sweet.
She was about this tall andlooked like Babe Ruth.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
She was just a mini.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But so he was born here.
He did not live here.
He stayed for a while while themother got healthy again.
She turned out, by the way, oneof the reasons we didn't know
this until probably five yearsago she was an alcoholic.
And when you're the owner of asaloon and you're an alcoholic
and you're drinking, theinventory it's not a good thing.
(03:12):
But that certainly could havecontributed to her losing so
many babies because of alcohol.
That probably happened.
George Jr Babe grew up aroundhere.
The parents moved several times, but always within proximity to
where we are today.
Okay, and this neighborhood usedto be called Pigtown, and parts
(03:35):
of it still are, because theyran pigs hogs to market through
the streets back in the day.
So he grew up in Pigtown andran the streets, was
incorrigible as the phrase wentback in the day.
The vernacular has changedquite a bit since then.
But he also was truant.
He didn't like to go to schooland he really became a problem
(03:57):
for his parents.
A law was passed, I think bythe state in maybe 1901, that
said if your kid's truant, hewill become and has repeated
offenses.
This new law says that he willbecome a ward of the state.
They're going to take him away.
So his parents said we're notgoing to do that, we're going to
(04:21):
put him in St Mary's IndustrialSchool, which was like a prison
, in other words, when you wentin there you were not coming out
.
It was hard to get out, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Is that why people thought that he was an orphan?
Is because he grew up in thisschool.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Right.
People thought he was an orphanand because there were orphans
there, there were kids there,that from all different
backgrounds, but they all hadone thing in common and that was
that they had a very poor homelife or no home life.
So, they went into St Mary's,which was run by a Catholic
order called the AzverianBrothers, and so he went there
(04:55):
when he was seven years old in1902.
He mostly stayed there untilValentine's Day 1914, when he
signed a professional contractwith the Baltimore Orioles to
play baseball.
So for that span of time, 12years, he grew up at St Mary's
Industrial School where he waslearning to be a shirt maker.
Every kid was given a trade andthey were taught something so
(05:19):
that when they got to be 21years old they would be released
and off they would go and theywould have potential employment
through the skills that had beentaught them.
He did come home from time totime.
His mom died oh, what year wasthis?
You can look it up, kate Ruth,but let's say it's 1911.
She died of tuberculosis.
(05:40):
She and her husband had splitup because of the alcoholism in
1906.
So things were not good at home.
But Babe did come home for hismom's funeral and maybe for
Christmas or something he wouldget out every once in a while.
But in the meantime there was aman, a father, at St Mary's
Industrial School by the name ofBrother Matthias.
(06:03):
He was a giant of a man, let'ssay six feet four, something
like that, and he taught Ruthhow to play baseball and he
taught him well and Babe hadincredible skills and developed
a reputation around town as ayoung teenager of being this
extraordinary ballplayer.
When I got down here it wasstill at a time so in the very
(06:26):
early 80s where I could reachout and find people who played
baseball against Babe Ruth orwith Babe Ruth.
So I pulled in a lot of reallygreat firsthand impressions of
what he was like and heevidently must have been the
cat's meow.
He always was the cat's meow asa ball player.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
He was the total babe .
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, that's right, look at you.
Anyway, he stayed there.
In 1913, the year before he gotsigned, there was a big game
between St Mary's and Mount StJoseph High School, which was
not too far away, in the sameproximity west side of Baltimore
, and St Joe's still existstoday and has produced many fine
(07:10):
athletes over the yearsbaseball, basketball, wrestling,
whatever.
Mark Teixeira, who is a famousMajor League Baseball player,
went to Mount St Joe.
I talked with him about youknow years later, about whether
Ruth's impression was still uponthe school, and he said, oh
know years later about whetherRuth's impression was still upon
the school and he said, oh yeah, especially the baseball team.
Everybody knows that Babe Ruthplayed on this field and that
(07:33):
kind of stuff, but anyway.
So this big game between St Joeand St Mary's occurred at the
end of the season in 1913.
Ruth pitched for St Mary's anda guy named Morissette pitched
for Mass.
Both were considered prospects,good pitchers, and Ruth
(07:54):
obliterated him, justoutperformed all over the place.
In attendance that day, amongthe thousands who showed up for
that game, was a fellow by thename of Jack Dunn.
The thousands who showed up forthat game was a fellow by the
name of Jack Dunn.
So Jack Dunn came to the gamebecause he was the owner and
manager of the minor leagueOrioles.
So he had heard about these twokids and he went out and he was
(08:16):
impressed with both of them,but especially with Ruth.
And so on Valentine's day of1914, he went to St Mary's
Industrial School and met withBrother Matthias and other
administrators from the schooland he said I would like to
offer George Ruth a professionalcontract to play baseball.
And Ruth, who was 19 years oldhe was underage, he had to be 21
(08:39):
to get out.
So they said OK, we want Georgeto do well, we understand that
he's really a wonderful baseballplayer, but you're going to
have to sign guardian papers toget him out of here.
Jack Dunn said OK, I will behis legal guardian.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Until he was 21.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And off they went.
It was really a nebulous thing,but the school had to do it.
Dunn did it.
So they took off forFayetteville, north Carolina,
spring training, and they wentin a little bit after
Valentine's Day, likemid-February, they took off to
go down there and they went bytrain.
Ruth, the story goes, had towalk through a snowstorm like a
(09:18):
blizzard to get to the trainstation.
So he said goodbye to hisfather who was living in over
top of his bar that was locatedat Oriole Park, where Oriole
Park is today.
There were buildings therebefore and so he was there and
he took off and he walked acouple of miles to the train
(09:38):
station, got on the train withother players and off they went
to North Carolina.
They were put in sleepers andso they slept overnight one
night and each of these sleepercars or berths had netting where
I guess you could put yourbelongings.
So you're laying there andyou've got a window and then
(09:59):
there's this net that's hangingright there and the players told
rookie Ruth, this is for you toput your pitching arm in, to
make sure that it's nice andsafe when we get down there and
of course he did it.
And then he woke up the nextmorning and he couldn't move his
arm, he was just a mess.
But anyway, off.
He went to Fayetteville, northCarolina, and he discovered the
(10:23):
world there.
He had never ridden a bicycle,he had never been in an elevator
, so evidently he was going upand down in the elevators and so
he almost killed himself on thebicycle.
And according to stories we havesome really wonderful coverage
of that spring training 1914,through the Baltimore Sun.
(10:44):
They had a reporter on site bythe name of Jesse Lin, training
1914, through the Baltimore Sun.
They had a reporter on site bythe name of Jesse Linthicum and
so we have Jesse's recollectionand writing covering that spring
training in the firstinter-squad game that they
played.
And they did this.
They trained at a horse racetrack in the middle and Ruth in
his first at-bat hit the longesthome run in the history of
(11:07):
North Carolina and if you go toFayetteville there is a plaque
that marks the spot.
So people immediately knew thatthis was something
extraordinary.
Now George Ruth is with theteam and with his guardian and
manager and owner, jack Dunn.
The players started callingGeorge Ruth Jack Dunn's baby and
(11:34):
that's where Babe came from andyou will see by maybe March
11th or in that vicinity, theyrefer to him as Babe Ruth.
That's where it came from, soit's a good story.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And it's a good story .
And, to be fair, I mean, he wasthe guardian as well.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So it wasn't just.
That's it Jack Dunn's baby.
He's got him.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And he kept that, so it must have meant a lot to him.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, yeah.
So anyway, ruth goes along.
He does extremely with theOrioles when they start playing
real baseball in April.
But there was an issue for JackDunn and that was Jack Dunn is
a minor league team and JackDunn plays here.
This is a ballpark, okay,across the street, literally
(12:17):
across the street, was anotherballpark and that was occupied
by the Federal League BaltimoreTerrapins.
This was a startup league.
First year they were consideredmajor league caliber, minor
league caliber, major leaguecaliber.
Even though George Ruth plays,or Babe Ruth plays, for minor
league, orioles, federal League,terrapins or major league, they
(12:41):
outdraw minor league team tothe extent that minor league
team sells its best players andmoves to Richmond just to try to
salvage the franchise, which hedid.
And then he came back toBaltimore, like next year or
whatever.
But he sold Babe Ruth and twoother top players to the Boston
Red Sox.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I was curious why he would have done that.
When I was looking through Iwas like why would he get rid of
this amazing player that hediscovered?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Because back then minor league today minor leagues
are affiliated with majorleague teams officially.
Okay, so that the Orioles havefour minor league teams plus a
rookie thing, but I won'tconfuse you with that and each
of those teams does whatever themajor league franchise wants
them to do.
So the Orioles have some reallygood players at their highest
(13:27):
minor league level in Norfolkand if the Orioles say we want
that guy, he's on a plane andhe's here.
In Jack Dunn's era they werenot affiliated directly with
major league clubs, so minorleague owners could keep their
players until the price gotright.
But in this case Dunn had nochoice.
(13:49):
He had to cut payroll and hedid.
And so Ruth goes off and hesignificantly.
When he got to Boston he didn'tstay long.
They sent him to the team thatthey most affiliated with in
Providence, rhode Island.
So they sent him there becausethey didn't think he was ready
to play Major League Baseball atthat point.
(14:09):
And before he went he met awoman named Helen Woodford and
he brought her home with himafter the season and married her
in Old Ellicott City at StPaul's Church, which still
exists to this day.
Now, if you go to the church andyou will go in and you go God,
babe Ruth got married rightthere.
He didn't.
He got married in the rectory.
(14:30):
We didn't know that till later,and the reason is because Ruth
was raised as a Catholic butHelen was not, so it was a mixed
marriage religiously.
And so I found this out becauseI took a reporter from the
Chicago Tribune who was doing astory on Babes Baltimore or
whatever.
So we go to the church and I'm.
(14:52):
So here's a church where thisis maybe 10 years ago, here's a
church where he got married, andso the priest, that kind of led
us around and stuff.
He goes no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, I'll show you where
he got married.
So he takes us to the rectoryand we go into the priest's
office and he goes he gotmarried in my office, which was
not my office at that time oranybody's office, but that's
(15:13):
where he got married.
That happened.
We have the marriagecertificate upstairs on display.
It's kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
That's very cool.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
One of the fun things that I discovered about being
in the position of being thedirector of this museum, which
my son refers to as dad.
Don't get too headstrongbecause, remember, you run a row
house.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And I'm like and um, there is a book in me which I've
been too busy to write, butit's, it's going to reference in
the title how to run a rowhouse or something, something.
But anyway, what I found wasthat there's, there was a lot of
stuff that survived thepillages of time relative to
(15:55):
Babe Ruth, because it was BabeRuth and people knew early on,
even when he was at St Mary's,that he was somebody special, so
people kept things.
How in the heck is it that wehave the marriage certificate
from that, his firstprofessional game as an Oriole?
We have the official box scorethat the scorer kept and we've
(16:15):
got it.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
So we have a fair amount of stuff on early Ruth
and all that good stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
That's really not normally the case.
Almost in every singlesituation for a historical,
famous figure, you look for thescraps that were kept on
accident in somebody's drawer.
Yeah, that's right.
So it's remarkable.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it's pretty wild, a very frustrating thing
relative to precious artifactspertaining to Babe Ruth.
We have every kid at St Mary'sgot a hymnal okay, this little
brown and maybe 30 pages in itand it had hymns and prayers and
different things.
(16:52):
And so this brown covered bookon the inside cover, somebody
found it under the floorboardsof a building at St Mary's
because they were converting StMary's to become a Catholic high
school called Cardinal Gibbons.
On the inside cover faded.
It said George H Ruth, world'sworst W-O-R-S-E singer, world's
(17:18):
best pitcher.
We had an FBI handwritingforensics dude, analyze the
writing.
And he said without a doubt andhe compared it with other Babe
Ruth stuff he said it's real.
We tried to get it appraisedand people would not touch it
(17:38):
because and this is maybe fiveyears ago, because the world of
sports collectibles has gottenoutrageous Everything is so much
money involved and that kind ofstuff.
But it's hurtful to me that wecannot declare that an authentic
piece of memorabilia.
We can only suggest that it is.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I don't understand why they wouldn't touch it,
though.
What was the reasoning?
Just mum.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Because they would not authenticate it.
They said this does not looklike Babe Ruth's writing.
He was 12 years old.
People's handwriting changes,but the FBI guy has shown you
beyond reasonable doubt thatthere are.
I think it's a Palmer School ofcursive that they taught back
then that many of the letters inthis little thing that he did,
(18:26):
george H Ruth Worshinger,corresponded with his adult
writing.
But they wouldn't buy it.
I'm telling you, this FBI guydid this immense report on this,
like 100 pages of information,and look at this and point
pictures and all this stuff, andthey won't do it because I
(18:48):
guess it might sully theirreputations as authenticators or
whatever.
Anyway, that's a frustratingpart of working in the world of
sports collectibles.
All right, it's a brutal worldout there because everything has
a price tag.
When I first came here in theearly 80s it was not that way,
and so that if you had a BabeRuth autographed baseball and
(19:10):
you wanted to sell it, maybe ahundred bucks and before the 80s
were finished that number hadbecome a thousand bucks and
today it might be $50,000.
There's a Babe Ruth rookie card, in other words a baseball card
that depicts Babe Ruth as anOriole pitcher.
(19:30):
So 1914, here is his baseballcard.
It's his rookie card.
They're few and far between $7million.
I'll show you the card upstairs.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Is it the red card, the little red, the one that's
got like red around?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
the edges.
There is a red version and ablue version.
We currently show the blueversion.
We were showing red versionbefore, but that one got sold
for $10 million.
So this one is a lesser qualityand it's blue and it's $7
million.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Wow, pretty cool, pretty cool, yeah, and it's $7
million.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Wow, pretty cool, pretty cool, yeah.
So anyway, ruth years with theRed Sox, gets traded or sold to
the Yankees in 1920.
But in the time that he waswith the Red Sox he would come
home after the baseball seasonand stay with his father.
So Helen and Babe would comehome In the first two years, not
the first, 1915 and 1916,.
(20:29):
When he came home he played inan exhibition game where they
would take local guys fromCatonsville, which is Westside,
and Irvington, which is WestsideMount St Joe is in Irvington
and thousands of people wouldcome out to see this because
Babe was already Babe.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And I'm sure all the rest of the players are like oh,
what are we going to do?
We can't compete.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
We have photographs from both years and the crowds
are astonishing.
It's amazing.
But the Baltimore Sun was therewith a camera and I showed
Teixeira these photographs andhe said, yeah, there's home
plate and there's first base.
What's happened is that theyuse the same field but they
reversed it, so home plate ishere and then first base is that
(21:16):
way.
He said otherwise it's.
You can see the hill and wherethe people were and I'm like,
yeah, so to share a love that hethought that was really cool.
So Babe goes to New York and heturns that city upside down.
And if you think about theroaring 20s, the epicenter for
the roaring 20s in America isManhattan.
(21:39):
It's New York City and Ruth whogets there.
In 1920, his energy, biggerthan life, Manhattan, New York
City, took on that persona.
In 1994, we went to New Yorkfor Yankees' Old-Timers Day,
where a lot of the old playerswho had been with the Yankees
(22:01):
would come back and just reallycelebrate the dynasty that the
New York Yankees were and stillare.
They've won more championshipsthan any other professional team
in the history of the world, Alot of it having to do with Babe
Ruth.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I was going to say because it stopped after he left
for a while there.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
It's crazy that one player genuinely had that big of
an impact on a team.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
You're too young to have lived through Beatlemania
so that when the Beatles boomexploded on America in 1964, I
was 17 years old and I was likeholy.
We all were just stunned.
It was the biggest thing of ourlifetime.
(22:46):
And Ruth was the same way whenhe hit New York.
There was nothing like it.
So in 94, I'm up there with asound crew, two guys, and we're
interviewing Yankees what doesBabe Ruth mean to the Yankees?
And they would all talk.
The mayor of New York showed upthat day, rudy Giuliani, and I
(23:11):
put a microphone in front of him.
I said, Mayor, tell me whatRuth means to New York City.
And he gave me a minute and ahalf.
It was amazing.
He was great.
Too bad, too bad.
What happened, rudy?
You got way out of whack withyourself there.
So Ruth went there, bigger thanlife, the first player to
(23:32):
endorse merchandise there's Ican show you Babe Ruth underwear
for little children in the backthere.
The first to have a playeragent.
Player agents happen all thetime.
Now Everybody's got an agent,it's just common, oh yeah.
If you're a professional athlete, you have an agent unless you
choose not to.
The Ravens have a quarterbacknamed Lamar Jackson.
(23:54):
He has chosen not to have arepresentative.
He negotiates his own deals.
Okay, but there are not many ofthem.
Most guys have agents.
Babe had the first.
He had the first one.
He's the first athlete to havea business card.
Think about that.
So there's all this stuff withBabe Ruth, that he's the first
(24:15):
and he set 206 individualrecords, 206 records he broke or
set for Major League Baseball.
Most of those have since beenbroken.
A couple still remain, but he'sastonishing.
So let's say the Chicago Cubs,a baseball team at that time.
Let's say that they hit 20 homeruns as a team.
(24:37):
Because the game was differentthen.
There weren't a lot of homeruns hit, it was called small
ball.
They ran.
You get a single, you go tofirst base.
Next guy bunts and moves man tosecond and the object was to
get runs across the plate anyway you could.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
So small plays rather than a big, large hit.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah, just whatever.
You would steal a base, youwould move up on an error, you
would get a bass.
You would move up on an error,you would get a single, you
would get a double or a walk orwhatever.
When Babe Ruth came home run,everybody was like what the hell
was that?
And it just became the thing.
The Yankees didn't have enoughseats where they were playing to
(25:22):
house his celebrity, to hosthis celebrity, so they built
Yankee Stadium, the house thatRuth built.
It opened in 1923.
60,000 people come out to seeBabe Ruth play Wherever he went.
Everybody came out.
Wherever the Beatles went.
When they showed up, peoplejust…so it's phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
He wasn't just a good baseball player.
He was an American culturalicon.
He was revolutionizingeverything.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Everything.
Most people never got to seeBabe Ruth play because radio
really didn't come into its ownto the extent that we had
coverage of baseball games onthe radio until the mid-20s.
Okay, if you did not live in acity where an American League
team was or a National Leagueteam that made it to the World
(26:12):
Series against the Yankees, youdidn't get to see Babe Ruth
right.
So he became mythic in a sensebecause he was invisible and you
could follow him on the moviereels that they had.
And they did something back thenin the 20s called barnstorming.
So after the season Babe Ruthand his pal Lou Gehrig another
(26:36):
celebrated player they would puttogether a group of
professionals and they would goto little cities all over the
United States, mostly out West,where baseball major league
baseball was not played at thattime.
So they would go into a town inIowa and they would play in
front of 5,000 people who wouldcome out and Iowa would get a
(26:57):
representative team of theirbest, like high school players
or whatever, and they would playthe Babe Ruth team or whatever.
So that's how people got to seea little bit of Babe Ruth,
andbut otherwise he was justthis guy who they could only
really dream about.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
An enigma, absolute enigma right there yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
When Babe Ruth turned 100 in 1995, in the year
leading up to that, we foundpeople who had met.
Babe Ruth turned 100 in 1995,in the year leading up to that
we found people who had met BabeRuth when they were kids and
Babe Ruth signed a billionbaseballs.
Upstairs we have on displaysome of the baseballs that
people gave us that they hadreceived when they were a child
(27:37):
from Babe Ruth, and everybodyhad a story.
So one guy would say we were upin Maine and we heard that Babe
Ruth was coming to visit afriend of ours or a friend of my
parents, and so we all lined upin the street to look at him
and that kind of stuff.
They all had great stories.
They're all dead now, they'reall gone.
Anyway, ruth has a zillionstories and one of the
(28:00):
fascinating, wonderful aspectsof my job is that new stories
are always coming.
Or his ancestor had collectedthe box scores, the way that you
record a baseball game and thenext day the newspaper will put
(28:32):
the box score in so you can readthis guy had four at-bats, he
scored two runs, or whatever.
He had the box scores for everyWorld Series game played
between 1909 and 1930.
So that means it's also anincredible collection, because
we're not privy to that kind of.
I mean, you could probably pullthat research, but these are
(28:55):
box scores clipped out ofnewspapers.
But Ruth played in 10 WorldSeries.
This span, 1909 to 1930,represents nine of those World
Series.
The only one that it doesn'tcover was his last World Series,
which was 1932.
So we plan on making a graphicshowing all of Babe Ruth's box
(29:17):
scores in the World Series.
That's cool.
Now this here put those on.
This is fairly cool and thishas not been appraised.
This is a ball that Babe Ruthhit for a home run.
I don't know how many of theseare around.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
That is so cool.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Now what we do to interpret so this ball and
whoever caught it I think it'shome run number 462 or something
like that.
This is going to go on displaybecause Babe Ruth Museum turns
50 on July 19th.
You should probably.
We're going to do a party onJuly 26th, but anyway, this was
donated to us recently, so it'snever been on display.
(29:58):
But see that the stitches areblack and red.
Mm-hmm alternating or blue andred American League Baseballs
had this stitching at this timein the 20s and 30s and stuff
like that.
So that helps us to determinethat this thing is authentic for
sure.
Here is another one Now.
This one here's a Babe Ruthautograph, but you see the ball
(30:19):
just just like now.
This ball is in not very goodshape.
This ball is in much bettershape, but the enemy of
autographs on baseballs or otherthings is light.
As we learned our lessonsgrowing up down here, we would
put a Babe Ruth autographedbaseball on display with a good
signature and about five yearslater you could buy the display
(30:39):
case and go uh-oh, where'd thesignature go?
It's starting to fade andthings have to go off display.
Yeah, and that's kind of whathappened with the Babe Ruth
hymnal is that we had it ondisplay and over time it faded,
although it's in pencil on thisbrown paper, so it was never
really easy to see.
Fortunately, we took picturesof it early on so we know what
(31:03):
it looked like when it was inits best shape, but anyway, so
that's always a challenge for usto do stuff like that.
So now you've held a very rareBabe Ruth Hermon baseball so
that, yeah, people will listen.
That's what he's known for homeruns right.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I'm basically now a huge Babe Ruth fan because I had
no like.
Genuinely, as someone who isn'tinterested in sports, this was
fantastic.
But in your opinion, with allof your history and knowledge,
why is baseball known asAmerica's pastime?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I think, because when it came along, you have to
trace the history of Americabecoming industrialized.
It started off with a bunch offarmers, whatever, and small
towns, but then, as industrygrew, people ended up getting
jobs.
And this is like the middle ofthe 19th century that we started
(31:53):
to convert and cities startedto grow and people would get
factory jobs and things likethat.
But as they got factory jobs,if you're a farmer you're
working seven days a week.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Your family's, working seven days a week.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Every day, everybody's working and doing
that, my point being that by thetime people stopped being an
agricultural gig and more of anindustrial gig, they got time
off.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
So we started being able to have pastimes.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
And baseball coincidentally started as the
industrial gig was getting itslegs under it.
And so off it goes and clubteams start to show up on the
East Coast, northeast mostly.
Baseball was being played inBaltimore and Washington and New
York and Boston and all over.
So here and then the Civil Warhappened and all the guys who
(32:46):
were playing baseball in theNortheast and mid-Atlantic went
into the Army and they startedplaying baseball.
So guys in California orwhatever, iowa, they learn how
to play baseball and then thewar ends and they all go home
and to play baseball.
And then the war ends and theyall go home and they play
baseball.
So now the first professionalteam occurred in 1876,
(33:07):
cincinnati Reds.
They're the first pro team.
So there they are and off we gomaking leagues and things like
that.
The Orioles, our team, took itsname.
They had been the BaltimoreBaseball Club and they started
off in the 70s, 1870s as well.
And in 1882, they were in aleague called the American
Association and there was aMardi Gras kind of event that
(33:32):
occurred in Baltimore every yearand it was put on by the Order
of the Oriole and so Oriole kindof became part of the local
vernacular and people startedreferring to the baseball team
as our Orioles in 1882.
So they have been the Oriolesever since 1882.
(33:53):
Now different iterationsAmerican Association, national
League, american League, minorLeague, american League.
So it's changed, but they'vealways stayed the Orioles.
They wear orange and black.
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
That's very cool, yeah, so for people who want to
come and visit, you made a pointto tell me earlier, which I
think is really important, thatthis is not just about Babe Ruth
, this museum.
You talk about the history ofsports in the area.
What do you want people to knowabout the museum?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
That we represent and work to preserve and maintain
the legacy of America's mostcelebrated athlete, babe Ruth.
He's the guy.
However, over years, we havecome to take on the mantle of
being the museum official museumof the Baltimore Orioles, the
official archives of theBaltimore Colts, one of the
storied NFL franchises of alltime.
We represent the BaltimoreRavens, we represent the
(34:41):
Maryland Terrapins, we representTowson University Athletics.
We represent Johns HopkinsUniversity Lacrosse.
I'm Michael Phelps.
Have you ever heard of him?
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I have.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Well, michael Phelps is in the archives right behind
us, along with dozens andhundreds of individual athletes
and sports teams in this state.
Maryland is a very small statewith a very big sports imprint
on the nation.
Babe Ruth came from here, calRipken came from here, michael
Phelps came from here.
These are all local athleteswho have.
(35:13):
Katie Ledecky is from here.
We're really quite something,not to mention the fact that
we've had great champion sportsteams forever, and the oldest
professional sports organizationin the United States dating
back, I think, to 1797, is theMaryland Jockey Club, pimlico
horse racing.
It's the oldest historicalorganization in sports in the
(35:37):
United States.
So we have a lot going for usthat way and I think, as far as
I'm concerned, the success of myjob has been to collate all
this, to bring it all under oneroof so that we've got the
history and we interpret thehistory through the exhibits and
displays that we do, and maybesomeday you'll be lucky enough
(35:58):
to work for us on a project orsomething because you like
history Anytime, because we whowork here and there are only a
few of us getting ready to comedown these steps we are
historians.
I mean, I know a lot aboutAmerican history and I follow it
, and so I'm not primarily asports fan, although I am a
sports fan, but I'm a historyguy as well, which helps me do
(36:19):
my job in sports history, forsure.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
This was really incredible and interesting, so
thank you.
Thank you so much for tuning inand supporting Curator's Choice
, a Mighty Oak Media production.
If you enjoyed the show, pleaseconsider subscribing and rating
the show on Apple Podcasts,spotify, youtube or wherever you
get your podcasts.
If you love a museum and wouldlike to hear it featured in an
(36:42):
episode, shoot me a message atcuratorschoicepodcast at
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I'll do my best to reach outand see if I can get them to be
on the show.
You can also view articles,artifacts and more by following
us on Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks for listening toCurator's Choice, a podcast for
history nerds and museum lovers.
Hi, I'm Ayla Sparks and this is Curator's Choice, a
podcast for history nerds andmuseum lovers.
From ancient relics to modernmarvels, each episode of this
show features a new museum and acurator's choice of some
amazing artifacts housed there.
These guardians of history willshare insights, anecdotes and
the often untold stories thatbreathe life into the artifacts
(00:29):
they protect.
Thanks for tuning in to thisMighty Oak Media production and
enjoy the show.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Babe Ruth is probably the most celebrated sports name
in at least American sportshistory.
He's the big name.
I taught a college course for23 years and, as a way to
identify what I did for a realjob, I would ask my students the
first night of class how manyever heard of Babe Ruth.
(00:56):
Everybody would raise theirhand.
I would branch out a little bit.
How many have heard this is1989.
How many have heard of BrooksRobinson?
How many have heard of CalRipken?
How many have heard this is1989, how many have heard of
Brooks Robinson?
How many have heard of CalRipken?
How many have heard of DorothyHamill, et cetera?
As the years went by, the handscame up for Babe Ruth.
Others faded away.
Even Brooks Robinson faded away.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I don't recognize any of those other names.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, it was like pretty amazing.
Until the last semester Itaught and one kid did not raise
his hand and I said where areyou from?
And he goes Nairobi.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Okay, you could have passed, but anyway.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So Babe Ruth, a very famous name.
He is an American icon.
How did he get to be that?
Where did he come from?
He came from the waterfront ofBaltimore, where we are right
now, and he was born at 216Emory Street in southwest
Baltimore.
That's the building that we'rein right now.
This was the home of hismaternal grandparents, Because
(01:58):
Kate Ruth, the mommy, and Georgethe father.
They were saloon keepers andshe didn't want to give birth in
a saloon, so she came home toMommy and Daddy's house and gave
birth here.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Actually in the house .
Speaker 2 (02:11):
In the house.
Wow, most children were born inthe house, which is when you
see the bedroom where he wasborn and when children anybody
sees that bedroom.
We explain that this is whereAmericans, or probably
throughout the world people,were born at home with the help
of midwives.
So Kate's midwife was MinnieGraff, so she helped with the
(02:31):
delivery.
She was the first of.
She gave birth to eightchildren here and six died in a
childbirth or early infancy.
Only a sister and babe survived.
I met the sister many yearslater at Mamie and she was a
sweet.
She was about this tall andlooked like Babe Ruth.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
She was just a mini.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
But so he was born here.
He did not live here.
He stayed for a while while themother got healthy again.
She turned out, by the way, oneof the reasons we didn't know
this until probably five yearsago she was an alcoholic.
And when you're the owner of asaloon and you're an alcoholic
and you're drinking, theinventory it's not a good thing.
(03:12):
But that certainly could havecontributed to her losing so
many babies because of alcohol.
That probably happened.
George Jr Babe grew up aroundhere.
The parents moved several times, but always within proximity to
where we are today.
Okay, and this neighborhood usedto be called Pigtown, and parts
(03:35):
of it still are, because theyran pigs hogs to market through
the streets back in the day.
So he grew up in Pigtown andran the streets, was
incorrigible as the phrase wentback in the day.
The vernacular has changedquite a bit since then.
But he also was truant.
He didn't like to go to schooland he really became a problem
(03:57):
for his parents.
A law was passed, I think bythe state in maybe 1901, that
said if your kid's truant, hewill become and has repeated
offenses.
This new law says that he willbecome a ward of the state.
They're going to take him away.
So his parents said we're notgoing to do that, we're going to
(04:21):
put him in St Mary's IndustrialSchool, which was like a prison
, in other words, when you wentin there you were not coming out
.
It was hard to get out, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Is that why people thought that he was an orphan?
Is because he grew up in thisschool.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Right.
People thought he was an orphanand because there were orphans
there, there were kids there,that from all different
backgrounds, but they all hadone thing in common and that was
that they had a very poor homelife or no home life.
So, they went into St Mary's,which was run by a Catholic
order called the AzverianBrothers, and so he went there
(04:55):
when he was seven years old in1902.
He mostly stayed there untilValentine's Day 1914, when he
signed a professional contractwith the Baltimore Orioles to
play baseball.
So for that span of time, 12years, he grew up at St Mary's
Industrial School where he waslearning to be a shirt maker.
Every kid was given a trade andthey were taught something so
(05:19):
that when they got to be 21years old they would be released
and off they would go and theywould have potential employment
through the skills that had beentaught them.
He did come home from time totime.
His mom died oh, what year wasthis?
You can look it up, kate Ruth,but let's say it's 1911.
She died of tuberculosis.
(05:40):
She and her husband had splitup because of the alcoholism in
1906.
So things were not good at home.
But Babe did come home for hismom's funeral and maybe for
Christmas or something he wouldget out every once in a while.
But in the meantime there was aman, a father, at St Mary's
Industrial School by the name ofBrother Matthias.
(06:03):
He was a giant of a man, let'ssay six feet four, something
like that, and he taught Ruthhow to play baseball and he
taught him well and Babe hadincredible skills and developed
a reputation around town as ayoung teenager of being this
extraordinary ballplayer.
When I got down here it wasstill at a time so in the very
(06:26):
early 80s where I could reachout and find people who played
baseball against Babe Ruth orwith Babe Ruth.
So I pulled in a lot of reallygreat firsthand impressions of
what he was like and heevidently must have been the
cat's meow.
He always was the cat's meow asa ball player.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
He was the total babe .
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah, that's right, look at you.
Anyway, he stayed there.
In 1913, the year before he gotsigned, there was a big game
between St Mary's and Mount StJoseph High School, which was
not too far away, in the sameproximity west side of Baltimore
, and St Joe's still existstoday and has produced many fine
(07:10):
athletes over the yearsbaseball, basketball, wrestling,
whatever.
Mark Teixeira, who is a famousMajor League Baseball player,
went to Mount St Joe.
I talked with him about youknow years later, about whether
Ruth's impression was still uponthe school, and he said, oh
know years later about whetherRuth's impression was still upon
the school and he said, oh yeah, especially the baseball team.
Everybody knows that Babe Ruthplayed on this field and that
(07:33):
kind of stuff, but anyway.
So this big game between St Joeand St Mary's occurred at the
end of the season in 1913.
Ruth pitched for St Mary's anda guy named Morissette pitched
for Mass.
Both were considered prospects,good pitchers, and Ruth
(07:54):
obliterated him, justoutperformed all over the place.
In attendance that day, amongthe thousands who showed up for
that game, was a fellow by thename of Jack Dunn.
The thousands who showed up forthat game was a fellow by the
name of Jack Dunn.
So Jack Dunn came to the gamebecause he was the owner and
manager of the minor leagueOrioles.
So he had heard about these twokids and he went out and he was
(08:16):
impressed with both of them,but especially with Ruth.
And so on Valentine's day of1914, he went to St Mary's
Industrial School and met withBrother Matthias and other
administrators from the schooland he said I would like to
offer George Ruth a professionalcontract to play baseball.
And Ruth, who was 19 years oldhe was underage, he had to be 21
(08:39):
to get out.
So they said OK, we want Georgeto do well, we understand that
he's really a wonderful baseballplayer, but you're going to
have to sign guardian papers toget him out of here.
Jack Dunn said OK, I will behis legal guardian.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Until he was 21.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
And off they went.
It was really a nebulous thing,but the school had to do it.
Dunn did it.
So they took off forFayetteville, north Carolina,
spring training, and they wentin a little bit after
Valentine's Day, likemid-February, they took off to
go down there and they went bytrain.
Ruth, the story goes, had towalk through a snowstorm like a
(09:18):
blizzard to get to the trainstation.
So he said goodbye to hisfather who was living in over
top of his bar that was locatedat Oriole Park, where Oriole
Park is today.
There were buildings therebefore and so he was there and
he took off and he walked acouple of miles to the train
(09:38):
station, got on the train withother players and off they went
to North Carolina.
They were put in sleepers andso they slept overnight one
night and each of these sleepercars or berths had netting where
I guess you could put yourbelongings.
So you're laying there andyou've got a window and then
(09:59):
there's this net that's hangingright there and the players told
rookie Ruth, this is for you toput your pitching arm in, to
make sure that it's nice andsafe when we get down there and
of course he did it.
And then he woke up the nextmorning and he couldn't move his
arm, he was just a mess.
But anyway, off.
He went to Fayetteville, northCarolina, and he discovered the
(10:23):
world there.
He had never ridden a bicycle,he had never been in an elevator
, so evidently he was going upand down in the elevators and so
he almost killed himself on thebicycle.
And according to stories we havesome really wonderful coverage
of that spring training 1914,through the Baltimore Sun.
(10:44):
They had a reporter on site bythe name of Jesse Lin, training
1914, through the Baltimore Sun.
They had a reporter on site bythe name of Jesse Linthicum and
so we have Jesse's recollectionand writing covering that spring
training in the firstinter-squad game that they
played.
And they did this.
They trained at a horse racetrack in the middle and Ruth in
his first at-bat hit the longesthome run in the history of
(11:07):
North Carolina and if you go toFayetteville there is a plaque
that marks the spot.
So people immediately knew thatthis was something
extraordinary.
Now George Ruth is with theteam and with his guardian and
manager and owner, jack Dunn.
The players started callingGeorge Ruth Jack Dunn's baby and
(11:34):
that's where Babe came from andyou will see by maybe March
11th or in that vicinity, theyrefer to him as Babe Ruth.
That's where it came from, soit's a good story.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And it's a good story .
And, to be fair, I mean, he wasthe guardian as well.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
So it wasn't just.
That's it Jack Dunn's baby.
He's got him.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And he kept that, so it must have meant a lot to him.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, yeah.
So anyway, ruth goes along.
He does extremely with theOrioles when they start playing
real baseball in April.
But there was an issue for JackDunn and that was Jack Dunn is
a minor league team and JackDunn plays here.
This is a ballpark, okay,across the street, literally
(12:17):
across the street, was anotherballpark and that was occupied
by the Federal League BaltimoreTerrapins.
This was a startup league.
First year they were consideredmajor league caliber, minor
league caliber, major leaguecaliber.
Even though George Ruth plays,or Babe Ruth plays, for minor
league, orioles, federal League,terrapins or major league, they
(12:41):
outdraw minor league team tothe extent that minor league
team sells its best players andmoves to Richmond just to try to
salvage the franchise, which hedid.
And then he came back toBaltimore, like next year or
whatever.
But he sold Babe Ruth and twoother top players to the Boston
Red Sox.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
I was curious why he would have done that.
When I was looking through Iwas like why would he get rid of
this amazing player that hediscovered?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Because back then minor league today minor leagues
are affiliated with majorleague teams officially.
Okay, so that the Orioles havefour minor league teams plus a
rookie thing, but I won'tconfuse you with that and each
of those teams does whatever themajor league franchise wants
them to do.
So the Orioles have some reallygood players at their highest
(13:27):
minor league level in Norfolkand if the Orioles say we want
that guy, he's on a plane andhe's here.
In Jack Dunn's era they werenot affiliated directly with
major league clubs, so minorleague owners could keep their
players until the price gotright.
But in this case Dunn had nochoice.
(13:49):
He had to cut payroll and hedid.
And so Ruth goes off and hesignificantly.
When he got to Boston he didn'tstay long.
They sent him to the team thatthey most affiliated with in
Providence, rhode Island.
So they sent him there becausethey didn't think he was ready
to play Major League Baseball atthat point.
(14:09):
And before he went he met awoman named Helen Woodford and
he brought her home with himafter the season and married her
in Old Ellicott City at StPaul's Church, which still
exists to this day.
Now, if you go to the church andyou will go in and you go God,
babe Ruth got married rightthere.
He didn't.
He got married in the rectory.
(14:30):
We didn't know that till later,and the reason is because Ruth
was raised as a Catholic butHelen was not, so it was a mixed
marriage religiously.
And so I found this out becauseI took a reporter from the
Chicago Tribune who was doing astory on Babes Baltimore or
whatever.
So we go to the church and I'm.
(14:52):
So here's a church where thisis maybe 10 years ago, here's a
church where he got married, andso the priest, that kind of led
us around and stuff.
He goes no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,no, no, no, I'll show you where
he got married.
So he takes us to the rectoryand we go into the priest's
office and he goes he gotmarried in my office, which was
not my office at that time oranybody's office, but that's
(15:13):
where he got married.
That happened.
We have the marriagecertificate upstairs on display.
It's kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
That's very cool.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
One of the fun things that I discovered about being
in the position of being thedirector of this museum, which
my son refers to as dad.
Don't get too headstrongbecause, remember, you run a row
house.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
And I'm like and um, there is a book in me which I've
been too busy to write, butit's, it's going to reference in
the title how to run a rowhouse or something, something.
But anyway, what I found wasthat there's, there was a lot of
stuff that survived thepillages of time relative to
(15:55):
Babe Ruth, because it was BabeRuth and people knew early on,
even when he was at St Mary's,that he was somebody special, so
people kept things.
How in the heck is it that wehave the marriage certificate
from that, his firstprofessional game as an Oriole?
We have the official box scorethat the scorer kept and we've
(16:15):
got it.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
So we have a fair amount of stuff on early Ruth
and all that good stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
That's really not normally the case.
Almost in every singlesituation for a historical,
famous figure, you look for thescraps that were kept on
accident in somebody's drawer.
Yeah, that's right.
So it's remarkable.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, it's pretty wild, a very frustrating thing
relative to precious artifactspertaining to Babe Ruth.
We have every kid at St Mary'sgot a hymnal okay, this little
brown and maybe 30 pages in itand it had hymns and prayers and
different things.
(16:52):
And so this brown covered bookon the inside cover, somebody
found it under the floorboardsof a building at St Mary's
because they were converting StMary's to become a Catholic high
school called Cardinal Gibbons.
On the inside cover faded.
It said George H Ruth, world'sworst W-O-R-S-E singer, world's
(17:18):
best pitcher.
We had an FBI handwritingforensics dude, analyze the
writing.
And he said without a doubt andhe compared it with other Babe
Ruth stuff he said it's real.
We tried to get it appraisedand people would not touch it
(17:38):
because and this is maybe fiveyears ago, because the world of
sports collectibles has gottenoutrageous Everything is so much
money involved and that kind ofstuff.
But it's hurtful to me that wecannot declare that an authentic
piece of memorabilia.
We can only suggest that it is.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I don't understand why they wouldn't touch it,
though.
What was the reasoning?
Just mum.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Because they would not authenticate it.
They said this does not looklike Babe Ruth's writing.
He was 12 years old.
People's handwriting changes,but the FBI guy has shown you
beyond reasonable doubt thatthere are.
I think it's a Palmer School ofcursive that they taught back
then that many of the letters inthis little thing that he did,
(18:26):
george H Ruth Worshinger,corresponded with his adult
writing.
But they wouldn't buy it.
I'm telling you, this FBI guydid this immense report on this,
like 100 pages of information,and look at this and point
pictures and all this stuff, andthey won't do it because I
(18:48):
guess it might sully theirreputations as authenticators or
whatever.
Anyway, that's a frustratingpart of working in the world of
sports collectibles.
All right, it's a brutal worldout there because everything has
a price tag.
When I first came here in theearly 80s it was not that way,
and so that if you had a BabeRuth autographed baseball and
(19:10):
you wanted to sell it, maybe ahundred bucks and before the 80s
were finished that number hadbecome a thousand bucks and
today it might be $50,000.
There's a Babe Ruth rookie card, in other words a baseball card
that depicts Babe Ruth as anOriole pitcher.
(19:30):
So 1914, here is his baseballcard.
It's his rookie card.
They're few and far between $7million.
I'll show you the card upstairs.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Is it the red card, the little red, the one that's
got like red around?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
the edges.
There is a red version and ablue version.
We currently show the blueversion.
We were showing red versionbefore, but that one got sold
for $10 million.
So this one is a lesser qualityand it's blue and it's $7
million.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Wow, pretty cool, pretty cool, yeah, and it's $7
million.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Wow, pretty cool, pretty cool, yeah.
So anyway, ruth years with theRed Sox, gets traded or sold to
the Yankees in 1920.
But in the time that he waswith the Red Sox he would come
home after the baseball seasonand stay with his father.
So Helen and Babe would comehome In the first two years, not
the first, 1915 and 1916,.
(20:29):
When he came home he played inan exhibition game where they
would take local guys fromCatonsville, which is Westside,
and Irvington, which is WestsideMount St Joe is in Irvington
and thousands of people wouldcome out to see this because
Babe was already Babe.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
And I'm sure all the rest of the players are like oh,
what are we going to do?
We can't compete.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
We have photographs from both years and the crowds
are astonishing.
It's amazing.
But the Baltimore Sun was therewith a camera and I showed
Teixeira these photographs andhe said, yeah, there's home
plate and there's first base.
What's happened is that theyuse the same field but they
reversed it, so home plate ishere and then first base is that
(21:16):
way.
He said otherwise it's.
You can see the hill and wherethe people were and I'm like,
yeah, so to share a love that hethought that was really cool.
So Babe goes to New York and heturns that city upside down.
And if you think about theroaring 20s, the epicenter for
the roaring 20s in America isManhattan.
(21:39):
It's New York City and Ruth whogets there.
In 1920, his energy, biggerthan life, Manhattan, New York
City, took on that persona.
In 1994, we went to New Yorkfor Yankees' Old-Timers Day,
where a lot of the old playerswho had been with the Yankees
(22:01):
would come back and just reallycelebrate the dynasty that the
New York Yankees were and stillare.
They've won more championshipsthan any other professional team
in the history of the world, Alot of it having to do with Babe
Ruth.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I was going to say because it stopped after he left
for a while there.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
It's crazy that one player genuinely had that big of
an impact on a team.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
You're too young to have lived through Beatlemania
so that when the Beatles boomexploded on America in 1964, I
was 17 years old and I was likeholy.
We all were just stunned.
It was the biggest thing of ourlifetime.
(22:46):
And Ruth was the same way whenhe hit New York.
There was nothing like it.
So in 94, I'm up there with asound crew, two guys, and we're
interviewing Yankees what doesBabe Ruth mean to the Yankees?
And they would all talk.
The mayor of New York showed upthat day, rudy Giuliani, and I
(23:11):
put a microphone in front of him.
I said, Mayor, tell me whatRuth means to New York City.
And he gave me a minute and ahalf.
It was amazing.
He was great.
Too bad, too bad.
What happened, rudy?
You got way out of whack withyourself there.
So Ruth went there, bigger thanlife, the first player to
(23:32):
endorse merchandise there's Ican show you Babe Ruth underwear
for little children in the backthere.
The first to have a playeragent.
Player agents happen all thetime.
Now Everybody's got an agent,it's just common, oh yeah.
If you're a professional athlete, you have an agent unless you
choose not to.
The Ravens have a quarterbacknamed Lamar Jackson.
(23:54):
He has chosen not to have arepresentative.
He negotiates his own deals.
Okay, but there are not many ofthem.
Most guys have agents.
Babe had the first.
He had the first one.
He's the first athlete to havea business card.
Think about that.
So there's all this stuff withBabe Ruth, that he's the first
(24:15):
and he set 206 individualrecords, 206 records he broke or
set for Major League Baseball.
Most of those have since beenbroken.
A couple still remain, but he'sastonishing.
So let's say the Chicago Cubs,a baseball team at that time.
Let's say that they hit 20 homeruns as a team.
(24:37):
Because the game was differentthen.
There weren't a lot of homeruns hit, it was called small
ball.
They ran.
You get a single, you go tofirst base.
Next guy bunts and moves man tosecond and the object was to
get runs across the plate anyway you could.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
So small plays rather than a big, large hit.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah, just whatever.
You would steal a base, youwould move up on an error, you
would get a bass.
You would move up on an error,you would get a single, you
would get a double or a walk orwhatever.
When Babe Ruth came home run,everybody was like what the hell
was that?
And it just became the thing.
The Yankees didn't have enoughseats where they were playing to
(25:22):
house his celebrity, to hosthis celebrity, so they built
Yankee Stadium, the house thatRuth built.
It opened in 1923.
60,000 people come out to seeBabe Ruth play Wherever he went.
Everybody came out.
Wherever the Beatles went.
When they showed up, peoplejust…so it's phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
He wasn't just a good baseball player.
He was an American culturalicon.
He was revolutionizingeverything.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Everything.
Most people never got to seeBabe Ruth play because radio
really didn't come into its ownto the extent that we had
coverage of baseball games onthe radio until the mid-20s.
Okay, if you did not live in acity where an American League
team was or a National Leagueteam that made it to the World
(26:12):
Series against the Yankees, youdidn't get to see Babe Ruth
right.
So he became mythic in a sensebecause he was invisible and you
could follow him on the moviereels that they had.
And they did something back thenin the 20s called barnstorming.
So after the season Babe Ruthand his pal Lou Gehrig another
(26:36):
celebrated player they would puttogether a group of
professionals and they would goto little cities all over the
United States, mostly out West,where baseball major league
baseball was not played at thattime.
So they would go into a town inIowa and they would play in
front of 5,000 people who wouldcome out and Iowa would get a
(26:57):
representative team of theirbest, like high school players
or whatever, and they would playthe Babe Ruth team or whatever.
So that's how people got to seea little bit of Babe Ruth,
andbut otherwise he was justthis guy who they could only
really dream about.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
An enigma, absolute enigma right there yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
When Babe Ruth turned 100 in 1995, in the year
leading up to that, we foundpeople who had met.
Babe Ruth turned 100 in 1995,in the year leading up to that
we found people who had met BabeRuth when they were kids and
Babe Ruth signed a billionbaseballs.
Upstairs we have on displaysome of the baseballs that
people gave us that they hadreceived when they were a child
(27:37):
from Babe Ruth, and everybodyhad a story.
So one guy would say we were upin Maine and we heard that Babe
Ruth was coming to visit afriend of ours or a friend of my
parents, and so we all lined upin the street to look at him
and that kind of stuff.
They all had great stories.
They're all dead now, they'reall gone.
Anyway, ruth has a zillionstories and one of the
(28:00):
fascinating, wonderful aspectsof my job is that new stories
are always coming.
Or his ancestor had collectedthe box scores, the way that you
record a baseball game and thenext day the newspaper will put
(28:32):
the box score in so you can readthis guy had four at-bats, he
scored two runs, or whatever.
He had the box scores for everyWorld Series game played
between 1909 and 1930.
So that means it's also anincredible collection, because
we're not privy to that kind of.
I mean, you could probably pullthat research, but these are
(28:55):
box scores clipped out ofnewspapers.
But Ruth played in 10 WorldSeries.
This span, 1909 to 1930,represents nine of those World
Series.
The only one that it doesn'tcover was his last World Series,
which was 1932.
So we plan on making a graphicshowing all of Babe Ruth's box
(29:17):
scores in the World Series.
That's cool.
Now this here put those on.
This is fairly cool and thishas not been appraised.
This is a ball that Babe Ruthhit for a home run.
I don't know how many of theseare around.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
That is so cool.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Now what we do to interpret so this ball and
whoever caught it I think it'shome run number 462 or something
like that.
This is going to go on displaybecause Babe Ruth Museum turns
50 on July 19th.
You should probably.
We're going to do a party onJuly 26th, but anyway, this was
donated to us recently, so it'snever been on display.
(29:58):
But see that the stitches areblack and red.
Mm-hmm alternating or blue andred American League Baseballs
had this stitching at this timein the 20s and 30s and stuff
like that.
So that helps us to determinethat this thing is authentic for
sure.
Here is another one Now.
This one here's a Babe Ruthautograph, but you see the ball
(30:19):
just just like now.
This ball is in not very goodshape.
This ball is in much bettershape, but the enemy of
autographs on baseballs or otherthings is light.
As we learned our lessonsgrowing up down here, we would
put a Babe Ruth autographedbaseball on display with a good
signature and about five yearslater you could buy the display
(30:39):
case and go uh-oh, where'd thesignature go?
It's starting to fade andthings have to go off display.
Yeah, and that's kind of whathappened with the Babe Ruth
hymnal is that we had it ondisplay and over time it faded,
although it's in pencil on thisbrown paper, so it was never
really easy to see.
Fortunately, we took picturesof it early on so we know what
(31:03):
it looked like when it was inits best shape, but anyway, so
that's always a challenge for usto do stuff like that.
So now you've held a very rareBabe Ruth Hermon baseball so
that, yeah, people will listen.
That's what he's known for homeruns right.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I'm basically now a huge Babe Ruth fan because I had
no like.
Genuinely, as someone who isn'tinterested in sports, this was
fantastic.
But in your opinion, with allof your history and knowledge,
why is baseball known asAmerica's pastime?
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I think, because when it came along, you have to
trace the history of Americabecoming industrialized.
It started off with a bunch offarmers, whatever, and small
towns, but then, as industrygrew, people ended up getting
jobs.
And this is like the middle ofthe 19th century that we started
(31:53):
to convert and cities startedto grow and people would get
factory jobs and things likethat.
But as they got factory jobs,if you're a farmer you're
working seven days a week.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Your family's, working seven days a week.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Every day, everybody's working and doing
that, my point being that by thetime people stopped being an
agricultural gig and more of anindustrial gig, they got time
off.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
So we started being able to have pastimes.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
And baseball coincidentally started as the
industrial gig was getting itslegs under it.
And so off it goes and clubteams start to show up on the
East Coast, northeast mostly.
Baseball was being played inBaltimore and Washington and New
York and Boston and all over.
So here and then the Civil Warhappened and all the guys who
(32:46):
were playing baseball in theNortheast and mid-Atlantic went
into the Army and they startedplaying baseball.
So guys in California orwhatever, iowa, they learn how
to play baseball and then thewar ends and they all go home
and to play baseball.
And then the war ends and theyall go home and they play
baseball.
So now the first professionalteam occurred in 1876,
(33:07):
cincinnati Reds.
They're the first pro team.
So there they are and off we gomaking leagues and things like
that.
The Orioles, our team, took itsname.
They had been the BaltimoreBaseball Club and they started
off in the 70s, 1870s as well.
And in 1882, they were in aleague called the American
Association and there was aMardi Gras kind of event that
(33:32):
occurred in Baltimore every yearand it was put on by the Order
of the Oriole and so Oriole kindof became part of the local
vernacular and people startedreferring to the baseball team
as our Orioles in 1882.
So they have been the Oriolesever since 1882.
(33:53):
Now different iterationsAmerican Association, national
League, american League, minorLeague, american League.
So it's changed, but they'vealways stayed the Orioles.
They wear orange and black.
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
That's very cool, yeah, so for people who want to
come and visit, you made a pointto tell me earlier, which I
think is really important, thatthis is not just about Babe Ruth
, this museum.
You talk about the history ofsports in the area.
What do you want people to knowabout the museum?
Speaker 2 (34:19):
That we represent and work to preserve and maintain
the legacy of America's mostcelebrated athlete, babe Ruth.
He's the guy.
However, over years, we havecome to take on the mantle of
being the museum official museumof the Baltimore Orioles, the
official archives of theBaltimore Colts, one of the
storied NFL franchises of alltime.
We represent the BaltimoreRavens, we represent the
(34:41):
Maryland Terrapins, we representTowson University Athletics.
We represent Johns HopkinsUniversity Lacrosse.
I'm Michael Phelps.
Have you ever heard of him?
Speaker 1 (34:50):
I have.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Well, michael Phelps is in the archives right behind
us, along with dozens andhundreds of individual athletes
and sports teams in this state.
Maryland is a very small statewith a very big sports imprint
on the nation.
Babe Ruth came from here, calRipken came from here, michael
Phelps came from here.
These are all local athleteswho have.
(35:13):
Katie Ledecky is from here.
We're really quite something,not to mention the fact that
we've had great champion sportsteams forever, and the oldest
professional sports organizationin the United States dating
back, I think, to 1797, is theMaryland Jockey Club, pimlico
horse racing.
It's the oldest historicalorganization in sports in the
(35:37):
United States.
So we have a lot going for usthat way and I think, as far as
I'm concerned, the success of myjob has been to collate all
this, to bring it all under oneroof so that we've got the
history and we interpret thehistory through the exhibits and
displays that we do, and maybesomeday you'll be lucky enough
(35:58):
to work for us on a project orsomething because you like
history Anytime, because we whowork here and there are only a
few of us getting ready to comedown these steps we are
historians.
I mean, I know a lot aboutAmerican history and I follow it
, and so I'm not primarily asports fan, although I am a
sports fan, but I'm a historyguy as well, which helps me do
(36:19):
my job in sports history, forsure.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
This was really incredible and interesting, so
thank you.
Thank you so much for tuning inand supporting Curator's Choice
, a Mighty Oak Media production.
If you enjoyed the show, pleaseconsider subscribing and rating
the show on Apple Podcasts,spotify, youtube or wherever you
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If you love a museum and wouldlike to hear it featured in an
(36:42):
episode, shoot me a message atcuratorschoicepodcast at
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I'll do my best to reach outand see if I can get them to be
on the show.
You can also view articles,artifacts and more by following
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Thanks for listening toCurator's Choice, a podcast for
history nerds and museum lovers.
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