HE HAD one of the most recognized names of the 20th century and was renowned as baseball's greatest star. Years ago, a New York sportswriter dubbed the then-magnificent Yankee Stadium as "the house that Ruth built," a phrase that stuck. Yes, George Herman Ruth is America's Sultan of Swat and the greatest Yankee of them all, but his roots are anchored in the by-gone discipline of St. Mary's Industrial School and the blue-collar lifestyle of the Baltimore waterfront.
He spent his first 19 years here, acquired life's necessary bag of tools here and learned to play the game of baseball right here. For those who ask: "Is Babe Ruth ours?" The answer is yes -- absolutely!
George Herman Ruth was born in a Baltimore rowhouse on Emory Street on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 1895, the first child of George and Katherine Ruth. The newspaper headline that day forecast the coldest temperature of the winter and warned citizens to take precautions. Perhaps that is why Kate came to the Emory Street home of her father, upholsterer Pius Schamberger, to give birth to son George. A more likely story is that Kate sought the comfort of her father's abode to escape the lusty atmosphere of the Ruth's walk-up apartment over the family saloon and grocery on nearby Frederick Road.
Regardless, with the help of neighborhood midwife Minnie Graf, little George entered the burgeoning, bustling world of the Baltimore waterfront on that cold February day. Appropriately enough, the old International League Baltimore Orioles later that year would win the National League championship.
Babe's father, George Ruth Sr., started out in the lightning rod business. By the time Babe was born, George Sr. had begun tending bar and, eventually, he would operate a string of saloons on Baltimore's west side that included sites on Lombard Street and Frederick Road, as well as the Conway Street location that today is short-center field at Oriole Park.
Running a saloon and raising a street-wise, perennially truant toughian proved more than Ruth's parents could handle, however. On Friday, June 13, 1902, they escorted their incorrigible 7-year-old to St. Mary's Industrial School, an institution for orphans, delinquents and "problem" youngsters.
Run by the Xaverian Brothers, St. Mary's would serve as the youngster's home for most of the next 12 years. Ruth's sister, Margaret, recalled that her older brother was "furloughed" for Christmas and other holidays, and occasionally for good behavior. But most of the time he remained at St. Mary's, where superintendent Brother Matthias had a huge impact on the strapping lad's future.
The 6-foot-5-inch, 250-pound Matthias, affectionately called "The Boss" by St. Mary's 800 children, was Ruth's father-confessor and mentor. He preached respect, caring and self-discipline, mixed in with some old-time Catholic religion. He also taught George Ruth Jr. how to play baseball, and he taught him well.
So well that by 1913, when the boy was in his late teens, he had become one of the top amateur pitchers in town. Frequent glowing newspaper accounts of the southpaw from St. Mary's attracted the attention of Orioles owner/manager Jack Dunn, who on Feb. 27, 1914, signed Ruth to his first professional contract for $600.
Because Ruth was a minor, Dunn had to sign papers making himself the boy's legal guardian. That prompted Baltimore newspapers to refer to the rookie as "Jack Dunn's Baby," which was quickly shortened to "Babe."
The owner's "baby" made spring training headlines in March, and then made the team in April. He started and won his first
outing, a 6-0 shutout over Buffalo. But despite a sterling 47-22 midseason record, Dunn's International League Orioles of the high minors could not compete with Baltimore's Terrapins of the major Federal League. The owner had to sell off his top players to save the franchise. On July 9, Babe Ruth, along with Ernie Shore and Ben Egan, were sold to the Boston Red Sox for $25,000.
After the 1914 season Babe returned to Baltimore to help his father tend bar, but more importantly, to wed Helen Woodford, a pretty young waitress he had met three months earlier in Boston. The pair married on Oct. 17, 1914, at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Ellicott City, and then lived in the apartment over George Sr.'s saloon on Conway Street that winter. But then it was spring training, and young George was on his way to the most heralded career in the history of sport.
Babe visited his father every winter until 1918. That's when George Sr. died attempting to break up a fight outside his Lombard Street tavern. After that, Ruth's visits home were infrequent.
As a major-leaguer playing for the Red Sox and Yankees, Ruth played in 12 exhibition games at Baltimore's Oriole Park. On April 18 and 19, 1919, he thrilled the locals by blasting monstrous home runs in five consecutive turns at the plate. Otherwise, he seldom came here, except for the occasional visit to St. Mary's, ++ or maybe a stopover on his way to North Carolina to hunt. His last appearance here was at a charity baseball game on July 13, 1948. Sig Seidenman and his father, Milton, were at Friendship Airport to greet Babe and got him to sign a baseball. It's believed to be the last autograph Babe would give in Baltimore. He died a month later in New York.
From the time Ruth departed St. Mary's in 1914 to the day Sig Seidenman got that autograph, Babe Ruth forged front and center stage in the arena of our nation's favorite pastime, along the way saving . . . and then remaking the game into the way it is played today. He became a national cultural icon, treasured and beloved like few others.
But never doubt that Ruth understood and appreciated where he came from. Never doubt that he remembered where he first grabbed hold of life's boot strap, or in his case, bat handle, or that the gent who handed it to him was Baltimore's Brother Matthias, who the babe called "the greatest man I've ever known." Never doubt that Emory Street spawned the greatest of them all, the Babe from Baltimore, George Herman Ruth.
Happy 100th Birthday, Babe!
Michael Gibbons is executive director of the Babe Ruth Museum, which will celebrate Ruth's 100th birthday in activities this weekend.