Ninety-four yeas ago, on July 11, 1914, the soon-to-be legend Babe Ruth made his debut in Major League Baseball — he played for the Boston Red Sox, but in the 1919 season he was sold to the New York Yankees. He retired in 1935 – his one year as a Boston Brave, and is universally recognized as one of the greatest athletes of all time and the greatest baseball player of all time. For example, In 1927, Ruth was the first player to hit sixty home runs in one season, a record which stood for thirty-four years, when it was broken by Roger Maris in 1961. The Babe’s lifetime total of 714 home runs at his retirement in 1935 was a record for thirty-nine years, until broken by Mobile, Alabama native Hank Aaron in 1974.
Here’s Mel Allen on his time with Babe Ruth:
And here is a great 1937 Vitaphone reel — with Babe Ruth doing a little acting, and a little singing, too!
And with all the talk about Yankee Stadium – as this famous and important structure stands for its final year, its kind of cool to think about one of its monikers — The House that Ruth Built!