Babe Ruth Story

Product Description 100th Anniversary Tribute. Commentary By Pat O'Brien. George Herman Ruth, The Bambino, The Sultan of Swat, was born on the waterfront streets of Baltimore in 1895. This DVD, with rare, archival film, captures this legendary, fun-loving hero on and off the field. He was signed by the Baltimore Orioles in 1914 for $2,500 a year and then sold to the New York Yankees for $475,000 in 1919. He earned a whopping $80,000 in 1934 and his stats are as impressive today as they were then. His lifetime statistics look like this: .342 batting-average, 714 home runs (60 in 1927 alone), 2,213 runs-batted-in, and as a pitcher he twice won 20 games and ended his career with an ERA of 2.28. However, Babes life was a roller-coaster, but that never bothered the sportswriters, or the fans. He was simply the greatest ballplayer who ever lived - none had provided more thrills to more people than The Babe. After throat surgery in 1947, he said farewell to baseball in Yankee Stadium before a full house. He passed on at the age of 53 in 1948. Bonus Features: Heading Home (55 minutes) - A 1920 silent film starring Babe Ruth as a small town boy who makes it big! A family must-see; 1932 Babe Ruth confounds the Chicago Cubs; 1939 Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth; 1940 Babe Ruth tells all; 1942 Babe hits an upper-deck home run off of Walter Johnson; 1961 Roger Maris breaks Babe Ruths home run record. About the Actor Sure, Babe Ruth put up monumental statistics during his playing career. But the Bambino was more than numbers, especially to those who knew him, like former teammate Joe Dugan, who once said- To understand him you had to understand this: He was not human. Sports writer Tommy Holmes, a 1979 J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner, was more succinct- Some 20 years ago, I stopped talking about the Babe for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him did not believe me. Ruth has been called an American original, undoubtedly the games first great slugger and the most celebrated athlete of his time. Soon after honing his skills at St. Marys Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore, he came to the big leagues as a lefty hurler with the Red Sox, where he won 89 games in six years while setting the World Series record for consecutive scoreless innings. Due to his prodigious power he was shifted to the outfield after his sale to the Yankees in 1920, the Sultan of Swat would lead a powerful and renowned New York squad to seven American League pennants and four World Series titles. Ruth retired in 1935, after a partial season with the Boston Braves, ending his 22-year big league career with 714 home runs, including his remarkable 60 in 1927. His lifetime statistics also include 2,873 hits, 506 doubles, 2,174 runs, 2,213 RBI, a .342 batting average, a .474 on-base percentage, and a .690 slugging percentage. It was not that he hit more home runs than anybody else, said 1976 Spink Award winner Red Smith, he hit them better, higher, farther, with more theatrical timing and a more flamboyant flourish. Among Ruths other remarkable offensive achievements include leading the league in slugging percentage 13 times, home runs 12 times, bases on balls 11 times, on-base percentage 10 times, runs scored eight times, and runs batted in six times. One of the five in the Baseball Hall of Fames inaugural election in 1936, Ruth once said- The fans would rather see me hit one homer to right than three doubles to left. About the Director Hearst is one of the nations largest diversified media, information and services companies with more than 360 businesses. Its major interests include ownership in cable television networks such as A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime and ESPN; majority ownership of global ratings agency Fitch Group; Hearst Health, a group of medical information and services businesses; 30 television stations such as WCVB-TV in Boston and KCRA-TV in Sacramento, Calif., which reach a combined 19 percent of U.S. viewers; newspapers such as th