From Baltimore Boy to
National Hero
While this exploration of
Babe Ruth’s early life in Baltimore provides new information and more detail
concerning his family background than previous biographies, it doesn’t
substantially change his life story. It
is well known that Babe Ruth grew up in a reformatory/orphanage and that he was
pretty much abandoned by his parents at a young age. He always credited the Xaverian Brothers at
Saint Mary’s for his success and rarely spoke of his family. “I hardly knew my parents,” he once said.1
His home run hitting ability was
universally acclaimed. The praise he
received for doing good works outside of baseball, especially in regard to needy
children, was largely attributed to his Catholic upbringing at Saint Mary’s. On the other hand, the seamier side of his
life outside the game which was notorious for overeating, drinking, womanizing,
wrecking cars, adultery, etc. was attributed to his lack of a traditional
family; earning ungodly sums of money for the time; and acting on pent-up
desires after being confined for most of his teenage years.
This detailed summary of Babe
Ruth’s early life and family background helps to better understand the boy and
the man he became. It clarifies how much
his parents failed him. Babe Ruth was
not merely “a bad kid” or “a bum” as he states in his autobiography. He did not run wild because his parents were
too sick, too poor or too overworked to properly care for him. He was a child of parents that had a
multitude of problems. His mother in all
likelihood was an alcoholic. Her
addiction led her to infidelity and divorce.
His father was a jealous, violent man who made bad decisions for himself
and his family. He appears to have been
more interested in running a bar than caring for his family. Eventually Katie’s drinking probably led to
her early death, and his father’s temper and poor decisions led to his death as
well. Compared to his parents, the poor
behavior Babe Ruth exhibited as an adult by overeating, drinking too much,
driving recklessly and sleeping with many women can be considered relatively
moderate.
The underlying theme of Babe Ruth’s
youth is the erosion of an early twentieth century American family. In 1901 when he was six years old, he was
torn away from an extended family of cousins, aunts and uncles living within a
stable working class community when he was moved to a less desirable
neighborhood living over a saloon. In
1902 when he was seven years old, he was sent to Saint Mary’s Industrial School
for the first time removing him from the only family he had. Although he may have lived back and forth
between Saint Mary’s and his family for the next few years, in 1906 when he was
eleven years old, his parents divorced leaving him with no family to return to
if released from confinement. In 1912
when he was 17 years old while still at St. Mary’s, his mother died. In 1918 when he was 23, his father also died.
From
the ruins of his naturally family, St. Mary’s Industrial School became his new
family. The Xaverian Brothers became surrogate
parents. His fellow schoolmates replaced
his sister and cousins as surrogate siblings and friends. His dormitory and dining hall behind locked
gates substituted for a real home. The
play field became his sanctuary and release from abandonment. At Saint Mary’s Industrial School, young Babe
Ruth built a new life for himself replacing the shattered old life.
When
released from Saint Mary’s in 1914 to join the Baltimore Orioles, Providence
Grays and Boston Red Sox in rapid succession, he apparently made amends with
his father. Given the first chance to
live on his own, he did not go wild, drinking and sleeping around as later
stories may lead one to believe. Instead
he married a waitress, Helen Woodford, perhaps one of the first girls he met
and tried to recapture the more traditional family he lost. They moved in with his father and sister
during the off-season creating a new extended family. Upon meeting with success as a major league
pitcher, he established a family business, Ruth’s Café, with his dad as
proprietor and himself as manager (a title he later would seek but never obtain
after his playing career was over). But
playing ball took him on the road where he was enticed by other vices. He was not even twenty years old and his
bride a mere girl of sixteen when they wed.
For the rest of his life, Babe Ruth
tried to recapture a home life he experienced just briefly as a young child on
Woodyear Street. He bought a farm for
himself and his wife in Sudbury, outside of Boston. When Helen could not provide him with
children, Dorothy became his “adopted” daughter in a manner he would never
explain.2 A photograph of
Babe at his farm smoking a pipe with his young daughter sitting on his lap
promotes the image of a successful young family man.
But, Babe Ruth had an insatiable
appetite for things that Helen and a family life could not provide. With his new wealth and fame, Babe Ruth
epitomized the Roaring Twenties by living life on his own terms outside of
society’s norms. When he could not
reconcile this dual lifestyle with Helen, they separated. He lived life large on the road, in New York,
and in the limelight; while she settled down to a quiet home with a dentist in
Watertown out of the public eye.
When Helen died in a house fire in
1929 at the height of Babe Ruth’s fame, he was free again to live as he
pleased. So what did he do? Within three months he married the former
Claire Hodgson. Now he had a wife and
two daughters, and a large Riverside Avenue apartment. There was room for a mother-in-law and two of
Claire’s brothers in the household as well.
Once again, Babe Ruth recaptured an extended family. And so it was in his life, going from pole to
pole -- establishing a stable home life, but escaping on the road to do as he
wished.
He was that way in his baseball career
going from Babe Ruth the greatest ball player of all time to Babe Ruth an injured,
overweight player, flaunting the authority of managers, umpires and
commissioners. He would overstep
boundaries and then make amends and return to the grace of friends, family,
teammates and fans. Finally time eroded
his baseball skills and he retired from active play, yet he would continue to
be idolized by America’s youth. He was
Babe Ruth and there was nobody like him.
Cancer took his life on August 16,
1948 just thirteen years after he last played the game. In retirement, Babe Ruth would still enjoy
the accolades of fans, play golf, hunt and roam from Claire when given the
chance. Babe, the unwanted child, was
loved by all when he died at the age of 53.
Not far removed from his playing days at the time of his death, baseball
fans, many who had seen him play, lined up by the thousands for two days to pay
respects as he lay in state at the entrance of Yankee Stadium. They lined Fifth Avenue to watch his funeral
procession pass on the way to his final resting place at the Gate of Heaven
Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.
Babe Ruth’s life took him from
Emory Street to Frederick Avenue extended; from Woodyear Street to Camden
Street; from St. Mary’s Industry School on Wilkens Avenue to 406 West Conway
Street; from old Oriole Park on 29th Street to Ruth’s Café on Eutaw
Street; and from Boston’s Fenway Park to the house Ruth built, New York’s
Yankee Stadium. The life he built became
the stuff of legends and the myth more real than the man. Along the way, he left behind the story of
his early life in Baltimore. What good
would it do to re-live bad memories from his youth? Life was too short, and good times were to be
had in the present.
1 Babe Ruth Story as told to
Bob Considince, New York: E. P. Dutton
& Company, 1948, p. 12
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2 My Dad, the Babe by Dorothy
Ruth Pirone, Boston: Quinlan Press, 1988, p. 193-196. Babe Ruth's daughter Dorothy explains that
she was the child of Babe Ruth and Juanita Jennings. Dorothy was born when Babe was still
married to Helen. Later she was
"adopted" by Babe and Helen and raised as their daughter. After Helen's death, Babe married Claire
and he adopted Julia, Claire's daughter, while Claire adopted Dorothy as her
daughter. Dorothy's birth mother,
Juanita, later married Charles Ellias, a close friend of the Ruths. She didn't reveal to Dorothy that she was
her real mother until shortly before her death when Dorothy was more than
fifty years old.
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