Babe Ruth Biography

Babe Ruth's Early Life

On February 6th 1895, Babe Ruth was born George Herman Ruth, Jr., in a poor waterfront neighborhood. When Ruth was seven years old, his father gave him up to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, an orphanage. A priest at St. Mary's, Brother Matthias, recognized the wonderful talent that this child had, and worked with young George to improve his game. In 1914, Jack Dunn, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, observed Ruth pitch in a game, and immediately signed him to a contract. Because George was so young, he got the nickname "Jack's newest babe." This is how he got the name "Babe" Ruth.

Later in 1914, Ruth's contract was signed to the Boston Red Sox, who already had many excellent players. He appeared in five of the seasons games, only pitching in four. Ruth was able to get a spot on the teams starting rotation during the training season of 1915. Ruth's batting average for 1915 was .315, and hit four home runs as well. It appeared that the St. Mary's Brother Matthias and Jack Dunn alike had made a fair assessment of the young man.

New Home with the Yankees'

During his first year with the New York Yankees', Ruth batted a .376 and made 54 home runs. In the 1921 World Series, the Yankees matched the Giants on the field, where Ruth injured his elbow during game two of the series, and was unable to play the rest of the series. As a result, the Yankees lost the World Series. The Yankees finally won the World Series against the Giants on the third consecutive year they had played them in it. Ruth became sick during 1925, and did not play a very well season�in fact, the Yankees won only 69 of 85 games, and finished the season next to last in the American League.

In 1926, Babes' batting average was .372, he had 47 home runs, and 146 runs' batted in. With the AL title in their hands, they moved on to the World Series. Sadly, the Yankees were beaten by the St. Louis Cardinals, even though Ruth played well. Through the next few years, the Yankees saw great success, until 1928 when there were many injuries to the Yankees players. Over the next few years, he continued to pitch and hit well, but he played his last game in Yankee Stadium in 1934 to a crowd of only around 2,000.

The Boston Braves signed Babe Ruth to a contract, where he won his first game with his new team, defeating the New York Giants. The Boston Braves did not see much luck over the next few years, and on May 30th 1935, Ruth played his last major league game. This season did not go well for him, leaving him with a .181 batting average with six home runs. The Braves continued that year, only to receive the third worst record in the history of major league baseball. That year was his last in baseball, and in 1948 the Great Bambino died of cancer in New York.