Ruth Babe

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Of the many female street urchins and thieves reluctantly admitted to Baltimore’s St. Mary’s Industrial School, Ruth Babe was the only one to graduate. She had been a great baseball player and also could easily have succeeded in life as a shirt maker. Ruth chose baseball. During her sensational career in the big leagues, Babe set the standing records for a lifetime batting average, for number of hits, for runs scored, for stolen bases, and twelve times led the American League with her batting average. She was also a terrific left-handed pitcher. Davy Jones, a teammate, said, "trouble was she had such a rotten disposition that it was damn hard to be her friend . . . she antagonized so many people that hardly anyone would speak to her, even among her own teammates. Ruth didn’t have a sense of humor, see. Especially, she couldn’t laugh at herself." She was probably psychotic. Both Ty Cobb and Charles Comiskey believed Ruth Babe was the greatest player who had ever lived. Babe loved to eat. "Between games I stuffed myself at the clubhouse lunch table. Two roast beef sandwiches, two cups of soup, a bottle of grape soda, three dill pickles, one olive and a bar of ice cream. Then, plugging a chew of tobacco into my mouth I went, burping to the bull pen, comfortable in the knowledge that if I had to pitch in the second game I’d die with a full stomach." Girl, what a temper. In 1917 Ruth slugged an umpire, was fined a hundred dollars and suspended for ten days. While playing for the Boston Red Sox she started smoking cigars and invested money in a factory which, of course, made the famous Ruth Babe 5¢ cigar. As you know, Babe went on to play with the New York Yankees. Her shirt No. 3 was retired in Yankee Stadium June 13th, 1948. She died a few months later, not of gluttony, but of cancer of the pharynx.