Ruth first gained fame as a pitcher.
Although best remembered for swatting a prodigious 714 home runs and slugging .690, which remains a major-league record, Ruth was one of baseball’s most dominant left-handed pitchers in the 1910s. He won 89 games in six seasons with the Boston Red Sox, including 24 in 1917, and helped the team win three World Series titles. Ruth only pitched five games for the New York Yankees as his position switched to outfielder after being sold by Boston before the 1920 season.
He did not retire as a New York Yankee.
Ruth’s major-league career not only started in Boston, it ended there as well, but not with the Red Sox. Discarded by the Yankees as his performance waned, Ruth signed with the National League’s Boston Braves in 1935 in the hopes of becoming the team’s manager the following season. When it became clear that his skills had deteriorated and the promise would not be kept, Ruth ended his 22-year career after just 28 games in a Braves uniform.
Ruth was not a unanimous choice for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
A year after his retirement, Ruth was among the five initial inductees elected to the new National Baseball Hall of Fame under construction in Cooperstown, New York. In spite of Ruth’s amazing career statistics, 11 of the 226 voters left him off their ballots, and the “Sultan of Swat” trailed Ty Cobb as the leading vote-getter. Ruth’s plaque in Cooperstown refers to him as baseball’s “greatest drawing card,” and proving the point, the Hall of Fame last month opened a new exhibit on Ruth to coincide with the centennial of his first big-league season.
Ruth once pitched a combined no-hitter without retiring a single batter.
On June 23, 1917, Ruth took the mound against the Washington Senators and walked the leadoff hitter, Ray Morgan. Ruth argued balls and strikes with home plate umpire Brick Owens so vociferously that he was ejected from the game. Ruth rushed Owens and threw a punch that struck the back of the umpire’s neck. Morgan was then thrown out trying to steal second base, and Ruth’s replacement, Ernie Shore, retired the next 26 batters in order.
Ruth believed he was a year older than he really was for most of his life.
For decades Ruth believed that his birthday was February 7, 1894. However, when he applied for a passport before sailing to Japan with an all-star team of ballplayers after the 1934 season, he looked up his birth certificate and found his birthday listed as February 6, 1895, nearly a full year later than he had believed. Ruth, however, continued to celebrate February 7 as his birthday and did not shave a year off his age.