I've never believed in it, but I have always wondered whether Babe Ruth's birth at a certain time and place had something to do with him becoming baseball's greatest slugger. After all, his birth in February 1895 was just after the Old National League Baltimore Orioles had won their first pennant in September 1894. The team would go on to win three straight from 1894-96. Were the celestial stars aligned over Baltimore at that time to produce a baseball star?
On the other hand, a February birth has little to do with baseball and has been problematic for the present day Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum to hold a bash in Babe's honor at a time when sports fans are thinking more about the Super Bowl than baseball.
So, I began to wonder if the time of conception may be a better prognosticator than the time of birth. It appears that some astrological websites have debated the same thing, but I must admit my eyes begin to glaze over when I read about what house the moon is in when what star is ascending.
Nevertheless, since Babe Ruth was born on February 6, 1895, it is likely that he was conceived (out of wedlock) in early May of 1894. It so happens that this was a propitious time for baseball slugging in Baltimore.
Long before Frank Robinson hit a ball out of Memorial Stadium (fifty years ago last Mother's Day) which was marked by a flag displaying the single word, here ... another Hall of Fame player, Dan Brouthers, in his only season as an Oriole, hit a ball out of Baltimore's Union Park on May 4, 1895.
This accomplishment was also celebrated by painting the word, here, on the outfield fence of the ballpark to identify the spot where the ball flew out onto Guilford Avenue. It tuns out that this was just one of three monster home runs that Dan Brouthers slugged in Baltimore between May and July of 1894. See the following account from the book, Baseball's Ultimate Power, by Bill Jenkinson:
So, did the growing embryo that was to become a great bambino, somehow absorb the slugging momentum taking place in Baltimore in the Spring/Summer of 1894 which would later manifest itself into baseball's Sultan of Swat in the 1920s.
I still don't believe in astrology, but it is a remarkable coincidence that the late nineteenth century's longest home run was taking place at roughly the same time and place when the early twentieth century's greatest home run hitter was developing in utero.
