That saying may as well have started with Babe Ruth. But what made him really famous was his work for the New York Yankees as a batter. Ruth was widely acknowledged to be an excellent baseball player, both in terms of his pitching and his hitting. His massive popularity helped to cement his legacy as a baseball legend, writes Cliff Corcoran for Sports Illustrated , but it helped that he was genuinely an excellent player. Some of the records that he set continue to stand even today.
Before he came along, home runs were relatively unusual in baseball. His skill combined with his popularity as a cultural figure meant that people asked what his secret was. He changed baseball from a grind it out style to one of power and high scoring games. He re-wrote the record books from a hitting standpoint, combining a high batting average with unbelievable power.
In , he bested the homerun record he set in by belting a staggering 54 homeruns, a season in which no other player hit more than 19 and only one team hit more than Babe did individually. That season, he blasted a new record of 59 homeruns, drove in RBI, scored runs, batted. Babe was officially a superstar and enjoyed a popularity never seen before in professional baseball.
With Babe leading the way, the Yankees became the most recognizable and dominant team in baseball, setting attendance records along the way. During his time with the Yankees, Babe ignited the greatest dynasty in all of American sport.
Prior to his arrival, the Yankees had never won a title of any kind. After joining the Yankees prior to the season, Babe helped the Yankees capture seven pennants and four World Series titles.
The team is still considered by many to be the greatest in baseball history. Upon retiring from the Boston Braves in , Babe held an astonishing 56 major league records at the time, including the most revered record in baseball In , the Baseball Hall of Fame was inaugurated and Babe was elected as one of its first five inductees. During the fall of , it was discovered that Babe had a malignant tumor on his neck, and his health began to deteriorate quickly.
Babe lost his battle with cancer on August 16, For the New York Yankees, it was a different matter. With Ruth leading the way, New York turned into a dominant force, winning four World Series titles over the next 15 seasons.
Ruth, who became a full-time outfielder, was at the heart of all the success, unleashing a level of power that had never been seen before in the game. In , while with the Red Sox, Ruth set a single-season home run record of This turned out to be just the beginning of a series of record-breaking performances by Ruth. In , his first year in New York, he knocked 54 home runs. In his second season he broke his own record by hitting 59 home runs and, in less than 10 seasons, Ruth had made his mark as baseball's all-time home run leader.
Yet the athlete seemed determined to continue breaking his own records. In , he outdid himself again by hitting 60 home runs in a season's time—a record that stood for 34 years.
By this time, his presence was so great in New York that the new Yankee Stadium built in was dubbed "the house that Ruth built. Over the course of his career, Ruth went on to break baseball's most important slugging records, including most years leading a league in home runs 12 ; most total bases in a season ; and highest slugging percentage for a season. In all he hit home runs, a mark that stood until , when Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves surpassed him.
Ruth's success on the field was matched by a lifestyle that catered perfectly to a pre-Depression America hungry for a fast lifestyle. Rumors of his large appetite for food, alcohol, and women, as well as his tendency toward extravagant spending and high living, were as legendary as his exploits at the plate. This reputation, whether true or imagined, hurt Ruth's chances of becoming a team manager in later life. Ball clubs, wary of his lifestyle, didn't want to take a chance on the seemingly irresponsible Ruth.
In he was lured back to Boston to play for the Braves and for the opportunity, so he thought, to manage the club the following season. The job never materialized. On May 25, , an overweight and greatly diminished Ruth reminded fans of his greatness one last time when hit three home runs in a single game at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The following week, Ruth officially retired. He was one of the first five players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in While he eventually earned the title of coach for the Brooklyn Dodgers in , Ruth never achieved his goal of managing a major league team. Known throughout his life as a generous man, he gave much of his time in his last years to charitable events instead.
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