Ignoble Endings - Babe Ruth

 

Ignoble endings: A periodic series examining the sad conclusion to the careers of some of the greatest sports icons in history.

Babe Ruth’s impact on baseball is impossible to overstate. Beyond the statistics (about which we will have more to say below) all he did was single-handedly revitalize the game after the so-called Black Sox scandal, end the dead ball era and marshal in the modern version of the sport still played today, start the Yankees’ century of dominance by leading the team to four World Series titles, and oh yeah, his trade from the Red Sox (where he won three World Series titles in the 1910s) to the Yankees triggered the most famous curse in all of sports, one that began when Woodrow Wilson was President and did not end until George W. Bush’s first term and defined an entire region (and rivalry) for more than 80 years.

Today, Ruth is primarily known for his home runs, the number 714 is one of the few that is etched into baseball lore and understandably so. Ruth’s power was sui generis. The sport of baseball had never seen someone so prolific with the long ball. Consider that the all-time home run leader before Ruth was a 19^th century player named Roger Connor, who belted 138 home runs in a career that ran from 1881 to 1897. Ruth, in three years in the 1920s, hit more home runs than Connor did in 17 and his final tally was more than five times Connor’s effort. To put that into context, five times the current record of 762 home runs would require someone to hit 3,810 dingers, that is how far ahead Ruth was of everyone else in his day.

But home runs only tell part of the story. Ruth’s batting statistics are insane. Whether you look at traditional metrics like batting average (he hit over .370 *six* times (!) including a career high .393 in 1923), runs batted in (collecting more than 150 RBI in six seasons, and more than 160 RBI in three seasons, including a career high 168 in 1921) and slugging percentage (seven seasons above .700, including three above .800) or advanced metrics like OPS (16 consecutive seasons above .900 and fourteen above 1.000) and WAR (nine seasons with a WAR above 10 and a career WAR of 182). This is on top of the years he spent pitching, where he collected 94 wins against just 46 losses with a career ERA of 2.28. Added to that was Ruth’s larger than life personality. He was, in his way, an avatar for the Roaring 20s. His play on the field was matched by his excesses off it. He was a notorious drinker, womanizer, and gambler who spent money as quickly as he earned it.

As the 1920s gave way to the 1930s, the hangover kicked in. The country was in a depression, Ruth and the core of the Yankee teams that had dominated the previous decade were aging and fighting off the Philadelphia A’s for American League dominance. In 1932, Ruth led the Yanks to a World Series win over the Cubs, which included his famous “called shot” at Wrigley Field, but 18 months later he was no longer wearing pinstripes. What happened?

Ruth recognized his skills were diminishing and since the designated hitter would not be an option for extending careers until the 1970s, he was looking for what was, at the time, a fairly conventional exit strategy – managing.  His problem was that the owners of the Yankees were unwilling to fire the incumbent and replace him with Ruth and other owners, leery of Ruth’s off-the-field reputation, did not think the cost/benefit of hiring him as their skipper was worth taking. After a disappointing end to the 1934 season, Ruth toured Japan where he was feted like a king while back home, the Yankees were about to do something that would have once been unthinkable – trade Babe Ruth.

Ruth, by this time, was nearing 40 years of age and since no team was willing to make him their manager, his remaining value was as a gate attraction, which was exactly what Boston Braves owner Emil Fuchs was looking for to goose attendance for his awful baseball squad. The Braves (who would eventually move first to Milwaukee and then Atlanta, and yes, if you’re wondering, that means this franchise can claim two of the three all-time home run hitters as their own) were a weak sister to the crosstown Red Sox, playing to small crowds and routinely finishing at or near the bottom of the National League standings.

Ruth, given some vague promises that he might get partial ownership of the team, signed off on the deal and so it was that on April 16, 1935 he trotted out to left field for the Braves’ home opener against the New York Giants. The early returns were promising. Ruth went 2 for 4 with a home run and 3 RBI that day and followed it up by going 2 for 3 in the Braves’ second game of the season. But the moment did not last. His advanced age and weight made him a liability in the field and he was frequently overmatched at the plate. In the Braves’ next 17 games, Ruth collected just three hits, two singles and a solo home run, while his batting average plummeted to an unthinkable .149. In short order, Ruth also came to realize that Fuchs’s ownership offer was not going to be honored. The handwriting was on the wall.

In late May, the Braves visited the Pittsburgh Pirates for a three-game series at Forbes Field. Ruth did not do much in the first two games, going 1 for 8 with two punch outs, but in the finale on May 25th, he swatted three home runs - the final ones of his career - including the first to ever leave that ballpark entirely. Decades later, Ken Burns's documentary Baseball would claim this as Ruth's final game, an apt swan song for the man whose name is synonymous with the long ball, but that is not true. Ruth continued on the team's road trip, going hitless in his final five games, before retiring, unceremoniously, on June 1st. In the end, Ruth played just 28 games for the Braves, with career lows in batting average (.181) and home runs (6). He managed just 13 hits in 72 plate appearances while striking out 24 times. His play in the field was even worse, with Boston pitchers threatening to sit out games if he was in the lineup. Ruth, the greatest player of his, and possibly, any, generation, ended his career with a whimper, the man who once dominated the sport exiting it in rank humiliation.

Of course, that was not the end of Ruth’s story. Less than a year later, he entered Cooperstown as part of its inaugural class of inductees, a group still considered the greatest in the history of the Hall of Fame (which is understandable considering the other players were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and Honus Wagner). After that, Ruth went into a steady decline brought on by throat cancer. On June 13, 1948, the Bambino returned to Yankee Stadium for a ceremony to retire his number. Ruth donned his iconic #3 jersey, which sagged off his now shriveled frame, his body so weak he needed to use a bat as a cane to hold himself upright. Ruth received a roaring ovation from the more than 50,000 fans in attendance and spoke briefly before disappearing into the dugout. He would be dead two months later.