Baltimore is an interesting city, and, for a variety of reasons, I have visited there a number of times. On one of my trips I visited the Babe Ruth Museum which is housed in the home in which the Babe was born. The exhibits were very interesting, and just visiting the house itself was a fun experience. Baltimore has a second sports museum, Sports Legends at Camden Yards, which has an exhibit featuring Babe Ruth including items from a trip which Babe made to Japan. I bring this subject up because, ninety-three years ago, Babe Ruth made his major league baseball debut. According to his official biography, Babe Ruth was first signed by the Baltimore Orioles where he played for five months. The Orioles were at that time a minor league team and a part of the Boston Red Sox system. It only took those five months for him to be noticed by the Red Sox, and on July 11, 1914, the rest became history.

Babe Ruth's official biography is found on his official website. The website is sponsored by the family of Babe Ruth and the Babe Ruth Baseball League and is packed with all types of information about The Babe. The About Babe Ruth section contains not only his official biography, but also his baseball statistics, his achievements and awards, photos and quotes by him and about him. The Community section lists Tribute websites, like the ones put up by the Yankees and Red Sox, and provides a link to each one. It is also possible for anyone who has a tribute website to Babe Ruth to have it listed here on the Babe's official site. In the Downloads section, you can download free screen savers and computer wallpaper featuring Babe Ruth. The Shopping section will sell you everything from books and videos about Babe Ruth to life-sized cardboard figures of him!

Babe Ruth's career had amazing successes at the same time that his personal life had amazing ups and downs. He became a legend for his good qualities and a legend for his bad. In 1919, after a record-breaking pitching performance which helped the Red Sox win the 1918 World Series, Babe Ruth was traded to the New York Yankees, apparently to assist the new Red Sox owner in establishing his career as a Broadway producer. This was the beginning of the well-known Curse of the Bambino. The Babe's career as a Yankee can be found in detail on the NY Yankees official website This was a time period when Babe Ruth developed another of his talents, acting. The internet movie database lists a number of movies that included Babe Ruth, some sports shorts in which he was the only person involved, some movies where he made a cameo appearance as himself, and one movie, Babe Comes Home, in which he played the title role of Babe Dugan.

Babe Ruth's life is too eventful to be discussed at length in this blog. The only other career highlight that I will mention is his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936 as one of the first five players to be inducted. If baseball statistics are of interest to you, baseball-reference.com has a large collection of Babe Ruth's statistics as does Baseball Almanac which even includes his salary for each year that he played in the major leagues.

The library has some new materials for those interested in the career and life of Babe Ruth:
two new DVD : Everyone's hero and Reverse of the curse of the Bambino which traces the history of the curse, and highlights the Red Sox in the 2004 World Series.
several new books : Ty and the Babe : baseball's fiercest rivals, The big bam : the life and times of Babe Ruth , Babe Ruth : launching the legend, and Sultans of swat : four great sluggers of the New York Yankees.

So, as Babe Ruth said "The only real game, I think, in the world is baseball."