Ruth’s Café
When Babe Ruth returned to
Baltimore after the 1915 baseball season, he played in several amateur baseball
games. During one game at Saint Mary’s
Industrial School he lost a diamond ring and took out a “Lost and Found” ad in
the Baltimore Sun of October 25, 1915, stating:
LOST – 2½ carat DIAMOND RING.
Belgian setting at St. Mary’s Industrial School Grounds. Liberal reward if returned to GEO (“BABE”)
RUTH. 38 South Eutaw Street. 1
This newspaper
advertisement is the earliest printed source indicating that Babe Ruth’s
residence was no longer on Conway Street.
He now lived on Eutaw Street above what became known as Ruth’s
Café. Directly across the street from
the Bromo Seltzer Tower at Eutaw and Lombard streets, Babe’s new home was in
the heart of Baltimore’s wholesale and clothing manufacturing district. It was primarily a business district rather
than residential. Ruth’s Cafe was
definitely a step up from the saloons on Camden Street or Conway Street,
although today the building houses a gentleman’s “show bar” – a polite term for
a strip club. Some Babe Ruth biographers
claim that he bought Ruth’s Cafe for his father using his 1915 World Series
earnings.
Two surviving artifacts provide
information on Ruth’s Café. First, there
is a famous photograph showing Babe Ruth and his father tending bar. The bar is decorated for Christmas. A young Babe Ruth bears a striking resemblance
to his father in the photo. The place
has the air of prosperity. The
photograph depicts a large punch bowl on the bar, a spitoon trough along the
floor, and signs announcing "Oyster Raw Bar" and "Take Home a
Fry."
In the upper right hand corner of
the photograph, a calendar can be seen featuring an illustration of a young
lady sitting on an outfield fence at a ballpark. A detail of this calendar illustration also
survives. It clearly states, “Ruth’s
Café 36-38 S. Eutaw Street” with a
heading above the calendar “Babe Ruth’s Favorite.” In smaller letters, George H. Ruth, Sr. is
identified as the proprietor and George H. (Babe) Ruth Jr. as the manager. The young lady in the illustration bears a
resemblance to Helen, Babe’s young bride.
After all, at the time she was “Babe Ruth’s Favorite.” The calendar provides the early name of the
establishment distinguishing it from the other saloons his father owned. Another early reference to Ruth’s Café is a
brief article in the Baltimore Sun of February 14, 1916 about a billiard match that
took place there.
During
the 1916 and 1917 baseball seasons, Babe Ruth, still a pitcher for Boston, won
more than twenty games each year. The
Red Sox won the World Series again in 1916 with Ruth winning the second game
giving up one run in fourteen innings.
While some sources indicate that Babe Ruth spent his off seasons in
Baltimore through 1918, there are also indications that after the 1917 baseball
season, Ruth lived primarily in Boston.
The Xaverian Brothers from Saint
Mary’s suggested that he consider selling automobiles in Boston, perhaps to
remove himself from the environment of a saloon.2 Although there is
no indication that he ever sold cars in Boston, he bought new cars, drove too
fast and was involved in several accidents.
A Washington Post article of December 1916 stated that Babe was living
in Baltimore and was involved in an automobile accident: “He and his wife were trying out a new car
that he had recently purchased and in some way the auto turned over, and while
Ruth was badly cut and bruised, his wife was thrown heavily to the
roadside. She was rushed to the
hospital.”3 The following year, in November 1917, Babe Ruth was
involved in another off-season auto accident, but this time it was in Boston. He struck a Boston trolley car with force
enough to derail it.4 An unnamed woman was in the car with Ruth at
the time of the accident. It is likely
that Babe Ruth spent more time in Boston after the 1917 season. Eventually he bought a farm in the Boston
suburb of Sudbury.
The
last documented connection of Babe Ruth to Ruth’s Café took place during the
1918 baseball season. Babe Ruth wanted
to play more often as a batter and fielder rather than a pitcher. In 1917, he had a .325 batting average. In 1918 he pitched in only 20 games, as
compared to more than 40 in each of the previous two seasons, but hit 11
homeruns to lead the American League and batted .300. In the next few years he would raise the
number of home runs he hit to 29 and then to more than 50 as a full time
position player – an astronomical figure at this time. His desire not to pitch, resulted in
conflicts with Boston’s manager Ed Barrow.
Barrow was also upset that Ruth routinely violated curfews.
When the Red Sox were playing
against the Senators in Washington in July 1918, Babe was granted permission to
visit family in Baltimore. He was
suppose to return to the club in the morning, but showed up just before game
time. After Babe made an error in the
first inning and struck out twice, Barrow berated him in the dugout. When Ruth threatened to punch Barrow, he was fined
$500. An angry Babe Ruth left the team
on July 3rd and returned to Baltimore.
At Ruth’s Café, he gave impromptu interviews with the press, telling
them he was leaving the Red Sox to play for a shipbuilding firm.5 In
1918, the United States was fighting in World War I and able bodied adults were
suppose to be fighting in Europe or employed in war related industries at
home. Baseball was allowed to continue,
at least for awhile, but many players had either gone to war or became employed
in the war effort at home.
The
owner of the Red Sox threatened a law suit against the shipbuilding firm, and
within a few days the conflict ended with Ruth returning to the team. But, Babe Ruth returned to Baltimore and
Ruth’s Café one more time at the end of August under more tragic
circumstances. On the night of August
24, 1918, Babe’s father was killed in a fight outside of Ruth’s Cafe.6
Babe Ruth and his wife, Helen, came back to Baltimore for the wake and the
burial that took place at Loudon Park Cemetery on August 28th.
The
death of George H. Ruth, Sr. involved a dispute between brothers-in-law. George’s second wife, Martha had several
siblings including a sister, Nellie, and two brothers Benjamin and William
Sipes. In August 1918, Nellie’s husband,
Oliver S. Beefelt, was accused of abducting a sixteen year old girl and taking
her to Ohio.7 On August 24th, Benjamin visited his sister Nellie who
was staying at 36-38 South Eutaw Street, and later he had a heated argument
with his brother-in-law, Oliver Beefelt, at Ruth’s Café. At some point, Babe Ruth’s father became
involved in the altercation. Outside of
the bar, Babe’s father struck Benjamin Sipes knocking him to the ground, and
then he kicked him. Sipes was able to
get up and hit Ruth, causing him to lose his balance, and fall from the curb
striking his head on the pavement. Ruth
was taken to nearby University Hospital and died of his injury. Although Sipes was initially arrested for his
role in the death of his brother-in-law, he was not convicted of any crime.
Most accounts of this tragic
incident emphasize that the argument concerned Oliver Beefelt’s alleged
abduction of a sixteen year old girl, but Ruth assaulted his other
brother-in-law, Benjamin Sipes, not Beefelt.
Newspaper articles from early 1918 and other historical documents,
provide additional information that may explain why the fight took place
between Ruth and Sipes. Benjamin Sipes’
World War I draft registration card lists 38 S. Eutaw Street as his home
address and states he was employed as a blacksmith at Mount Clare. He was also moonlighting for his
brother-in-law tending bar at Ruth’s Café.
On the night of January 10, 1918, Benjamin Sipes was arrested at the bar
and charged with selling dope to a soldier from Fort Meade.8 The
charges were dropped when the alleged drug was analyzed and found to be a
compound of sugar, starch and salicylic acid, not morphine.9 Considering
the legal problems that Babe’s father had with earlier bars, the actions of
Benjamin Sipes endangered Ruth’s livelihood.
After the arrest, it is likely that Babe’s father forbade Sipes to tend
bar and possibly never to step foot again in his establishment. When he saw Sipes in his bar on August 24th,
he probably became incensed. His violent
outburst toward Benjamin Sipes ironically resulted in Ruth’s death.
Attending his father’s funeral,
Babe Ruth openly wept. It was the first
time his cousin, John Ruth, III, saw Babe cry.10 After his father’s
death, Babe Ruth’s association with his hometown for the most part ended. His sister would soon marry. Eventually she settled in Hagerstown with her
husband (seventy-five miles west of Baltimore) and raised a family. Babe’s mother and father were no longer
alive. His stepmother, Martha Sipes
McCotter Ruth, who was only a few years older than Babe, inherited $4,000 from
her husband’s estate. She soon married
George Strohmann, the former bartender at Ruth’s Café and earlier bars on
Conway Street. At least she waited after
Babe’s father died to hook up with the bartender.
Babe would play an occasional exhibition game in Baltimore or visit St. Mary’s Industrial School, but after 1918 Baltimore would be in Babe Ruth’s past. Despite his father’s death, he would lead the Red Sox to another World Series victory in 1918 during a short season impacted by the war. The war ended in November 1918, and Babe continued to play for the Red Sox for one more year. After the 1919 season his relationship with the team soured, and he was sold to the New York Yankees. Ruth turned that franchise into a powerhouse. No longer a pitcher (except for rare occasions) his home run hitting ability made Babe Ruth the best known and best paid baseball player of his time and changed the nature of our national pastime.
1 Baltimore Sun, October 25, 1915, p. 9
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2 Baltimore Sun, October 16, 1916, p. 4
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3 Washington Post, December 21, 1916, p. 8
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4 Baltimore Sun, November 9, 1917, p. 8
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5 Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Sun, July 4, 1918, p. 12
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6 Baltimore Sun, August 26, 1918, p. 12
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7 Baltimore Sun, August 13, 1918, p. 12
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8 Baltimore Sun, January 11, 1918, p. 12
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9 Baltimore Sun, January 19, 1918, p. 7
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10 Babe Ruth - His Story in
Baseball by Lee Allen, New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1966, p. 26.
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