Photos from the Vault

Babe Ruth Red Sox All star 1918

November 30, 1918
As baseball takes the All Star break, we have a chance to look back at the man who brought baseball into the modern age, the game’s first superstar, George Herman Ruth.
In 2009 the Yankees play in a new stadium that the Babe never knew but the franchise and the sport would not be the same without him.
The son of a Baltimore tavern owner, George grew up learning hard lessons in the streets of a tough town. At the age of 7 he was placed in Saint Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, an orphanage and reform school, where he learned baseball from Brother Matthias.
He earned the nickname Babe as a 19 year old rising star of the Baltimore Orioles of the International League. The team owner had to adopt the youth since he was not yet a legal adult.
One way to gauge the radical changes wrought on the sport is to read a story from the Babe’s early career before he revealed his full ability.
The Daily Telegram did not have a dedicated sports section in 1918 but it did pick up wire features on regular basis. There is no byline on the story.

There were many stars in last year’s baseball firmament but there was only one Babe Ruth.
Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Benny Kauff, Jim Vaughn and other stars received their usual amount of interest but the fan always returned to the question: Did Babe Ruth make a home run today?
Known at the start of the 1918 season as a great pitcher, he soon set the fans talking by his wonderful hitting.
And this fact gave Barrow, manager of the Red Sox, plenty to worry him.
Should he play Babe regularly in one of these positions and get the benefit of his war club, or should he use him as a pitcher where he would probably win 30 or more games.
Barrow taking advantage of Babe’s mighty physique, solved the problem by pitching Ruth in his regular turn in the box and using him in the outfield in other games.
The writer was talking to Ruth last June just after he had broken the world’s record for home runs in consecutive games by hitting four home urns in four days, one each day, and asking him what was his method of hitting.
“Pooh!” said Babe, with a grin, “take a good grip on the bat, dig in your toes and swing.”
While Ruth did not equal Socks Seybold’s American league record of 16 home runs in a season this may have been due to the curtailment of play on account of the war.
American League fans are eagerly awaiting the opening of the 1919 season to see if Ruth will come back and wagers have already been laid that he will beat Seybold’s record next year.

Ruth did break Seybold’s mark the next year with a mind boggling 29 home runs. Then the Red Sox made the worst decision in sports history and sold him to the Yankees.
The Babe would go on to set standards for slugging that are still used to compare best players.
As a pitcher he recorded 29 scoreless innings in World Series.
New York had never won a pennant until they bought Ruth’s contract for twice the previous record paid for a player. Remember when the Yankees were the doormat of the American League?

Raised in an orphanage Ruth could be generous with needy children. He could also drive his managers up the wall with his party animal habits. Babe Ruth was a remarkable talent and a man of epic appetites.
Teammate Ping Brodie once said of the elusive Ruth, “I don’t room with him, I room with his suitcase.”

In other news…
One of the things that worries me about this newspaper page is that the number of undertakers advertising in the paper equals the number of doctors.

Another sad note is the Free Public Library had longer hours in 1918 than we enjoy today.