Babe Ruth - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Babe Ruth
Outfielder / Pitcher
Born: (1895-02-06)February 6, 1895 Baltimore, Maryland
Died: August 16, 1948(1948-08-16) (aged 53) New York, New York
Batted: Left Threw: Left
debut
July 11, 1914, for the Boston Red Sox
Last appearance
May 30, 1935, for the Boston Braves
Career statistics
Batting average	.342
Home runs	714
Hits	2,873
Runs batted in	2,217
Win–loss record	94–46
Earned run average	2.28
Teams
Boston Red Sox (1914–1919) New York Yankees (1920–1934) Boston Braves (1935)
Career highlights and awards
2× All-Star (1933, 1934) 7× World Series champion (1915, 1916, 1918, 1923, 1927, 1928, 1932) 1923 AL MVP New York Yankees #3 retired Major League Baseball All-Century Team Major League Baseball All-Time Team Ranks in the top 10 of numerous career statistics MLB Records .690 career slugging % 1.164 career OPS
[[{{{hoflink}}}|Member of the {{{hoftype}}}]]
[[{{{hoflink}}}|Baseball Hall of Fame]]
Induction	1936
Vote	95.13%

George Herman "Babe" Ruth, Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was a famous baseball player during the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s in Major League Baseball. He played with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and the Boston Braves, and hit 714 home runs in his career.^[1] Only two players, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds, have hit more. At the beginning of his career, he was a pitcher. He is widely considered the greatest baseball player of all time.

Babe Ruth has been called by many nicknames. Some of the most common are: "The Great Bambino", "The Sultan of Swat", "The Colossus of Clout", "The Titan of Terror", and "The King of Crash". While attending St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, he was sometimes referred to by the racial epitaph "Niggerlips" as he had large facial features and was darker than most boys at the all-white reformatory.^[2]

Ruth learned to play baseball while growing up in Baltimore, Maryland.His first Major League Baseball (MLB) team was the Boston Red Sox. Ruth began playing as a pitcher. He had some of the best pitching statistics in baseball. The Red Sox won the World Series in 1915, 1916, and 1918.

At that time, there was no designated hitter rule in the American League, where the Red Sox played, so Ruth got chances to hit as a pitcher. The team realized that he was also good at hitting. In 1918, Ruth began hitting more and pitching less. Later in his career, he became an outfielder.

Ruth was becoming a star player. However, by 1919, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee was having problems with money.^[3] In 1920, the Red Sox sold Ruth to the New York Yankees for cash. Even though the Red Sox had won several World Series in the years before this, they would not win another one until 2004. Many baseball fans believed that the Red Sox had become "cursed" by trading Ruth, and called this the "Curse of the Bambino".^[4] (When the Red Sox finally did win a World Series in 2004, they beat the Yankees in the American League Championship to get there.)

Ruth spent most of the rest of his career with the Yankees, where he became one of the most famous players in baseball history. Ruth helped the Yankees win World Series championships in 1923, 1927, 1928, and 1932. He left the Yankees after the 1934 season and played one last season with the Boston Braves in 1935.

In 1927, Ruth hit 60 home runs, which was then a record for the most home runs in one season. The record was broken by Roger Maris in 1961 with 61 home runs.

Babe Ruth died on August 16, 1948, from a type of throat cancer. He underwent hormone therapy, and surgery in an attempt to treat his cancer. He was also one of the first cancer patients to receive sequential radiation and chemotherapy treatment.

In November 2018, Ruth posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Donald Trump.^[5]

He also had a .474 career on-base percentage, which is second all-time to Ted Williams' .482.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Babe Ruth.

• Baseball-Reference.com - career statistics and analysis
• baberuth.com - Official site
• baberuthmuseum.com Archived 2009-03-28 at the Wayback Machine Ruth Museum
• Photo of Babe Ruth as a member of the 1916 Red Sox Archived 2008-05-11 at the Wayback Machine