Babe Ruth

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Babe Ruth
Ruth in the Yankees' jersey (1920)
Ruth in the Yankees' jersey (1920)
Pitcher and Outfielder
Born: February 6, 1895
Baltimore , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Died on: August 16, 1948
New York City , United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
Suggested: Left Threw: Left
Debut in Major League Baseball
July 11,  1914  with the  Boston Red Sox
Last MLB assignment
May 30,  1935  with the  Boston Braves
MLB statistics
(until end of career)
Batting average    .342
Home runs    714
Hits    2,873
RBI    2.217
Win - Loss    94-46
Earned Run Average    2.28
Teams

Awards

member of
☆☆☆Baseball Hall of Fame☆☆☆
Recorded     1936
Quota    95.13%

George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (born February 6, 1895 in Baltimore , Maryland as Georg Hermann Ehrhardt Ruth , †  August 16, 1948 in New York City , New York ) was an American baseball player . He is considered one of the most important baseball players in the history of the sport. His sporting career lasted from 1914 to 1935; he became one of the national idols of the USA.

He was one of the first five players to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936 . His 714 home run record would last for 39 years before it was broken by Hank Aaron in 1974 . He was the first player to hit 60 home runs in one season (1927). This record lasted 34 years before it was exceeded by Roger Maris in 1961 .

ancestry

His paternal ancestor Georg Ruth came from the village of Oberalben near Kusel in what is now Rhineland-Palatinate and emigrated to North America , which was then still British , in the 18th century ; he went to Baltimore , Maryland , the only Catholic friendly city ​​in the colonies. “Babes” maternal grandfather, Pius Schamberger, was a new immigrant from Germany who had a small workshop in Baltimore as a freelance upholsterer . His parents Kate Ruth and George Herman Ruth Sr. ran an inn in Baltimore. They had eight children, six of whom died as infants; apart from “Babe” only his sister Mary (“Mamie”) survived. George Jr. spoke German at home.

Life

He was born in Baltimore, rarely went to school, played ball on the street or went to his grandfather's workshop. His parents always had to do with the inn until late in the evening, so they hardly had time to look after him properly. He quickly became a petty criminal, which at the age of eight took him to St. Mary's Industrial School For Boys , where Brother Matthias, a Roman Catholic priest, became Ruth's greatest role model and concentrated his excess energies on baseball.

He played in school teams as a left-handed pitcher , where he was noticed by the owner and manager of the Baltimore Orioles , a professional team from the lower leagues . This committed the 19-year-old. His childlike and at the same time precocious nature quickly earned Ruth the nickname “Babe” among the team. His first professional game on April 22, 1914 was a 6-0 victory over the Buffalo Bisons. The team had a very successful sporting season, but financial problems, which is why they sold Ruth to the Boston Red Sox , a major league team. He played the rest of the season for the Providence Grays, a Red Sox affiliate of the minor leagues. These won their league championship with Ruth's help, after which Ruth played permanently in the top division. In October 1914 he married the waitress Helen Woodford, whom he had met in Boston. Helen died, now separated from Babe Ruth, in a fire in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1929. On April 17, 1929, Babe Ruth married model and actress Claire Merritt Hodgson and adopted her daughter Julia.

The next year, 1915, the Red Sox won the World Series , but Ruth did not throw in the finals and his only blow was an off. In 1916 he established himself as the clear best thrower in the league with 23 wins (nine of them "to zero") and only 12 defeats. The World Series was won again, this time Ruth also threw. In 1917, the Red Sox couldn't keep up with the towering Chicago White Sox ; During this season, however, it became apparent that Ruth was increasingly showing excellent performances on the loft, very unusual for a thrower. In 1918 the World Series was won again. By 1919, Ruth gradually switched to the role of an outfield player, as this enabled him to be present at every game (throwers always have to pause for a while between games to regenerate their throwing arm). Such a change was considered unheard of and many believed that it would cut his career short. In addition, he had put on a lot of weight (the size of his meals was legendary) and so had the rather plump and thin-legged figure with which he is usually associated. Strangely enough, none of this prevented him from improving himself further and further.

Statue of Babe Ruth in Baltimore

In early 1920, the Red Sox, who had exhausted themselves financially in 1919 through high player salaries, had to sell Ruth for 125,000 US dollars to the New York Yankees , who had not done very well up to then. This is considered to be one of the biggest mistakes in baseball history; the Red Sox didn't win another World Series until 2004, 86 years after their last title. The long untitled period was traced back to the Curse of the Bambino (Bambino was another nickname of Ruth). There was a myth in Boston and the surrounding area that the Red Sox would have to burn the old contract they signed Ruth with on their spot in Fenway Park at midnight on the summer solstice, just above home plate (the last time to be reached to win a point) had sold to the Yankees at the time; only then could they be freed from the curse of selling Ruth and become masters once again. Ultimately, it was possible to win the title even without burning. However, the contract fetched large sums when it was sold or auctioned.

In his first year with the New York Yankees (1920), Babe Ruth improved his own home run record, which he had set the previous year: he hit 54 home runs. With this value, he almost doubled his 29 home runs from the previous season. When Babe Ruth came to the NY Yankees, they shared a pitch with the then New York Giants baseball club (now the San Francisco Giants ). Within a very short time, Babe's appearances at Schlagmal became a real synonym for the entire sport of baseball in the major league, and the Yankees became a figurehead for the city of New York.

Soon after, the Yankees had a very sizeable crowd and high revenue that enabled them to build their own Yankee Stadium , which finally opened in 1923. This stadium was nicknamed "The House That Ruth Built" ( The house that Ruth built ), since it was clear among fans that it would never have been possible without an exception, such as "The Babe" to realize this project in such a short time . In keeping with this, Ruth scored another home run on the opening day. That season, the Yankees won their first World Series in 1923, in which Ruth and his colleagues Joe Dugan , Wally Pipp and Aaron Ward offered strong performances. With this they laid the foundation for many other titles and excellent playful achievements, not least the “murderer team” from 1927, which dominated their opponents at will and is still considered to be the best season performance of a team.

Ruth was the top man of the Yankees until 1933. In 1934 his performance sank relatively quickly due to age and at the end of the season it was clear that he would no longer play for the Yankees. In 1935, he played for the Boston Braves (now the Atlanta Braves ) for two more months , but after an explosive start, his performance plummeted even faster than the previous year, so he retired from active sport in late May. In 1936 he was one of the first five players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame , the newly formed Major Leagues Hall of Fame . His last job in professional baseball was a position as an assistant coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers (now Los Angeles Dodgers ) in 1938, which he gave up after six months; then he withdrew into private life.

Babe Ruth died on August 16, 1948. He was previously diagnosed with cancer. Ruth was the first patient on whom chemotherapy with teropetrin was tried, which led to an improvement in his condition in the short term. The cancer was originally diagnosed as throat cancer, which matched Ruth's heavy tobacco and alcohol consumption. Later research suggests nasopharyngeal cancer. His coffin was laid out for two days at Yankee Stadium, where around 77,000 people paid their final respects. The funeral mass took place in St. Patrick's Cathedral . About 75,000 people attended the funeral ceremonies. He was buried in the Gate of Heaven Cemetery .

Babe Ruth Award

The Babe Ruth Award is an award from the Baseball Writers Association of America , which has given it to what it considers to be the best player in the World Series since 1948 and which was named after him in memory of the deceased.

Awards

In November 2018, US President Donald Trump announced that he would posthumously award Babe Ruth the Presidential Medal of Freedom .

Trivia

The "Baby Ruth" chocolate bar was launched in 1920 by the Curtiss Candy Company of Chicago . The phonetic resemblance to the name of the popular baseball player was probably intentional, but officially the daughter of US President Grover Cleveland, who died in 1904, was given as the namesake. The Curtiss Candy Company succeeded in court in pushing a rival company out of the competition that had secured the naming rights of George Herman Ruth, but was then not allowed to use them on any of its products. The Baby Ruth candy bar is now manufactured by Nestlé , which the Curtiss Candy Company acquired in 1990.

After Hank Aaron broke Ruth's record of 714 home runs with 715 home runs, mathematicians found the following number theoretic relationship: The sum of the prime factors of 714 is equal to the sum of the prime factors of 715:

Pairs of consecutive natural numbers with this property have been called Ruth-Aaron numbers ever since .

Movies

Web links

Commons : Babe Ruth  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Babe Ruth  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gert Raeithel: History of North American Culture. 1600 to 2002. 3 vol., Frankfurt am Main 4th edition 2003, vol. 2, p. 446
  2. ^ Babe Ruth's purchase contract is auctioned. Retrieved April 24, 2017 .
  3. ^ AL - Babe Ruth killed by rare cancer, researcher says. In: Seattle Times. August 6, 2008, accessed February 23, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Trump says 7 will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In: CNBC. November 10, 2018, accessed November 10, 2018 .
  5. ↑ The Babe Ruth Story. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 8, 2015 .
  6. Jump up ↑ Babe Ruth - The Baseball Legend. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 8, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Ruth, babe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ruth, George Herman Jr. (full name); Ruth, Georg Hermann Ehrhardt (birth name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American baseball player
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Baltimore , Maryland
DATE OF DEATH August 16, 1948
Place of death New York City , New York