Babe Ruth (George Herman Ruth Jr) is considered the greatest baseball player of all time. He would be the first athlete to transcend a sport and change the way baseball was played.
He originally played for the Boston Red Sox, where he set a record for most consecutive scoreless innings pitched in a World Series. After the 1918 World Series, the Red Sox would trade Ruth to the Yankees, and from that point, the game would change.
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Ruth began hitting more home runs than some teams would in an entire season. He was the athlete to took the game of baseball from the Deadball era to the live ball era.
The Yankees struggled to be relevant throughout the history of Major League Baseball until Ruth joined their team. Ruth would become so popular that the Yankees built their own stadium and called it "The House That Ruth Built."
He would lead his team to seven MLB Championships and many more pennants. By the end of his career, the Yankees would be the most popular team in baseball.
Babe Ruth lived a wild lifestyle, and in his 50s, it caught up with him. He was diagnosed with cancer when he was 53. After the Yankees retired his jersey, he died two months later.
Family Overview
George Herman Ruth Jr was a wild child from Baltimore and always into trouble. His parents struggled to rein him in and finally gave up and placed him in St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, which was a reformatory and orphanage. They signed custody of Ruth over to the Catholic missionaries.
It would be during this time that Ruth met another father figure named Brother Matthias. Matthias would teach about baseball, which would develop his love for the game. If it had not been for Matthias, there would never have been a Babe Ruth.
His first wife would be Mary Ellen Woodford. She married Ruth on October 17, 1914. The two would be married until 1929, when she died in a house fire.
His second wife, Claire Mae Merrit, married Ruth in 1929, just three months after his first wife's death. She would stay married to him until his death in 1948.
Babe Ruth had a daughter with a woman outside of his marriage named Juanita Ellias.
Family Tree Chart
Parents:
George Herman Ruth Sr. (1871 - 1918)
Katherine Schamberger (1874 - 1912)
Spouse:
Mary Ellen Woodford (1896 - 1929) - She died in a house fire.
Claire Mae Merritt (1897 - 1976)
Children:
Dorothy Helen Ruth (1921 - 1989)
Siblings:
Mary Ruth (1900 - 1992)