Babe Ruth’s Underwear
Baseball in 25 Objects: tenth in this year’s series
We have come this far in the 25 Objects Series without featuring an item for Babe Ruth. I could display a bat, an autographed ball, a jersey, his locker at the Baseball Hall of Fame. But he was the Sultan of Swag as well as Swat, and thanks to his agent, Christy Walsh, endorsed seemingly everything from candy bars to cigarettes to, well, underwear.
Ruth was not the first ballplayer to endorse a product: that would be George Wright, portrayed in a poster for Red Stocking Cigars in 1874. Nor was he the first to be paid for the persuasive power of his celebrity: that would be Honus Wagner, who on September 1, 1905, gave the J.F. Hillerich & Son Company permission to use his name on its Louisville Slugger bats for a consideration of $75. (Pete Browning, the eponymous Louisville Slugger, never got a nickel from the bats named for him.)
Back to the Bambino. What is there to say about him that hasn’t been said a thousand times over? That he was the greatest player ever? Sure, Ted Williams and Barry Bonds come close in lots of batting categories and even top the Babe in some. Henry Aaron hit more home runs and was undoubtedly a better outfielder. Willie Mays could throw with Ruth, and so could Roberto Clemente. The Babe was no threat to Rickey Henderson on the basepaths. His lifetime batting average doesn’t approach Ty Cobb’s. And he couldn’t have played shortstop like Honus Wagner. But none of these players, splendid as they were in their specialties and even in all-around ability, ever was called the best lefthanded pitcher in his league. Case closed.
That he was the most popular player ever? The Babe signed thousands of items during his all-too-short lifetime, so it can’t be said that his autograph is scarce. But it remains one of the most highly sought among collectors today; he could never have signed enough objects to meet demand. Things Ruth used or wore, or photographs and art that portrayed him, are precious beyond the dollars they fetch at auction. (On June 28, 1997 pitcher David Wells started a game at Yankee Stadium wearing one of Ruth’s old caps, for which he had paid $35,000.)
Nearly 75 years after his death, the Babe has attained an epic scale beyond that of such ancient worthies as Anson, Waddell, and Kelly, all honored in their day and mourned upon their deaths. Long ago I used to regale my now eldest son, a baseball fan already at age four, with tales of Ruthian exploits, such routine wonderments as “one year Ruth hit more home runs by himself than any team in his league besides his own.” And I told him, in hushed tones, “In a World Series game, Ruth was getting a razzing from the opposing bench, so he simply pointed to center field, took a strike, pointed again, and took another — and then walloped a home run to the deepest portion of the park.” When my son was six, I told him another story, evidently one more plausible.
His response: “You mean Babe Ruth was a real person?”
Only Lincoln is loved more among American heroes, and only Paul Bunyan cut a mythic swath through the land like Ruth. As John Kieran wrote in 1927:
He’s the Bogey Man of the pitching clan and he clubs ’em soon and late;
He has manned his guns and hit home runs from here to the Golden Gate;
With vim and verve he has walloped the curve from Texas to Duluth,
Which is no small task, and I beg to ask: Was there ever a guy like Ruth?
No, there was not.
***
In the mid-1920s Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were the stars of a western barnstorming tour that pitted the “Bustin’ Babes” against the “Larrupin’ Lous.” That came at a time when the Babe and Lou Gehrig were still the best of friends, before their celebrated feud. The story goes that Lou’s wife, Eleanor, asked the Babe’s new wife, Claire, why the daughter from her previous marriage was dressed more nicely than the Babe’s daughter from his first marriage. As a result, Babe and Lou did not speak for many years, until they reconciled at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, when Gehrig said his memorable goodbye to baseball.
Ruth had been a coach with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938 but had hoped to become the club’s manager. He was not to wear a baseball uniform again, except for old-timers’ games. His wife, Claire, once said that he spent the rest of his life waiting for the phone call that never came. In 1946 he was diagnosed with cancer. He rallied for a year or so, but the end was nigh.
On June 13, 1948, at a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Yankee Stadium, Ruth sat before his locker, the one shown here, and put on his old Yankees uniform one last time. As W. C. Heinz wrote, “He walked out into the cauldron of sound he must have known better than any other man.” Two months later he was gone, at age 53.
He had been, in the end, real enough.
