Babe Ruth

The crowd that jammed Chicago's Wrigley Field booed when the big man with the barrel-shaped body and pipestem legs came up to bat. It was anglictina/agatha-christie-the-third-floor-flat/" class="wiki-link" title="Viac o: the third">the third game of the 1932 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Yankees. The score was 4-4 in the fifth inning. Cub pitcher Charlie Root threw one strike, then another. Grinning, the batter stepped back and seemed to point to the distant center-field bleachers. Root pitched, the big man swung, and the ball soared into the bleachers for a home run. The hitter was Babe Ruth, probably the most revered of baseball players. Ruth's legendary pointing gesture whether it ever happened or whether he even intended it captured the imagination of baseball fans, as did everything about this great player. The Babe's achievements loom larger in the record books/" class="wiki-link" title="Viac o: books.">books. The left-hander held or shared about 60 records, with 28 made in World Series games. Among them were his record of pitching 29 consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play and his total of 714 major league homers not including 15 World Series homers. George Herman Ruth was born in Baltimore, Md., on Feb. 6, 1895. His father, a saloonkeeper, placed him in St. Mary's Industrial School when George was 7. There he learned to play baseball. In 1914, through the help of one of the priests who taught at the school, Ruth began to play with the Baltimore Orioles of the International League. The Orioles' manager, Jack Dunn, paid him 600 dollars for his first season. Although Ruth later earned such nicknames as the Sultan of Swat and the Busting Bambino, he got his most famous nickname Babe on his first day of practice. A veteran coach sneered at the 6-foot-2 youngster, "Here's another one of Dunn's babes." Later in the season he was sold to the Boston Red Sox. As his batting prowess grew, he was shifted from the pitcher's mound to the outfield, where he could play every day. Before he quit pitching, Ruth had won 94 games and lost 46. In 1920 Ruth was sold for 125,000 dollars to the New York Yankees, whose stadium was later called the House That Ruth Built. Then began the greatest years of his career. He reached his peak in 1927, when he hit 60 home runs, a season record that still stands. In 1925 he was suspended for "misconduct" off the field. As Ruth grew older, his huge body became too heavy for his slender legs. In 1935, after 15 years with the Yankees, he joined the Boston Braves as a playing vice-president.