Read Babe Ruth: Legends in Sports for Free Online Page A

victory that day, a sports-writer referred to the stadium as “the House that Ruth Built,”
     a nickname that has stayed with it ever since.
    For the rest of the season there was no stopping New York. Although Ruth didn’t hit home runs quite as frequently as before,
     ending the season with onlyforty-one, he hit better than ever, staying above .400 for most of the year before finishing at .393. The Yankees won the
     pennant by sixteen games over Detroit. Once again, they played the New York Giants in the World Series.
    Thus far, Ruth had done everything in New York but help the Yankees win a championship. For all his accomplishments he knew
     he wouldn’t really be considered a success until the Yankees won the series. Giants’ manager John McGraw entered the series
     confident. After all, his pitchers had shut down Ruth in both 1921 and 1922 by throwing him outside curve balls. “The same
     system,” he said, “will suffice.”
    This time, however, Ruth was ready. He tripled in the first game, a Yankee loss, but in game two he broke loose with two long
     home runs and narrowly missed a third. Although the Giants won game three 1–0, the Giants chose to walk Ruth twice rather
     than let him hit. Then, in game four, Ruth and the Yankees took command and won the next two games to finally take the series
     away from their crosstown rivals.
    Yankee owner Jake Ruppert was ecstatic. “Now I have the greatest ballpark and the greatest team,” he said. Everyone already knew he had the greatest player — Babe Ruth.

    Before he was a Boston Red Sox pitcher and a New York Yankees slugger, Babe Ruth played for Baltimore in the International
     League in 1914. This is his baseball card for that year.

    An undated photo shows pitcher Babe Ruth in his Red Sox uniform. His ability to slug home runs had not yet been discovered
     by the ball club.

    Home run! Yankee Babe Ruth, the Sultan of Swat, clouts one into the stands in this undated photo.

    Babe Ruth makes baseball history when he slugs in his sixtieth home run on September 30, 1927.

    A rare shot of the Babe sliding into home plate. Usually he arrived standing up!

    Even Babe Ruth’s strikes were powerful! In upper left corner, he taps the plate. In upper right, he swings and misses for
     strike one. Strike two follows, then strike three and he’s out.

    Babe Ruth embraces an emotional Lou Gehrig on July 4, 1939—the day Gehrig called himself “the luckiest man in the world.”

    Fans always flocked to Babe for autographs. In 1947, he signed a ball for a young female ballplayer.
    The following year, the cocky Yankees figured they’d win another world championship in 1924 just by showing up. Although Ruth
     had started drifting back to his old ways and was again gaining weight, most observers figured that the Yankees still had
     more than enough firepower and pitching to win.
    But the overconfident Yankees got off to a slow start. Before the season they foolishly released pitcher Carl Mays. He later
     won twenty games for Cincinnati while the Yankee pitching staff fell apart. By mid-season the Yankees were battling Washington
     and Detroit for the pennant.
    Ruth, however, was having another great year, just a shade below his performance in 1923. Still, despite cracking 46 home
     runs and hitting .378, he couldn’t put the Yankees over the top. They finished second.
    Unlike the previous winter, this year Ruth didn’t take care of himself. Instead of spending the off-season on his farm, getting
     ready for the upcoming season, he ran all over the country eating, drinking, and partying way too much. By the time he startedthinking about the upcoming season, he weighed nearly 260 pounds! He tried to lose weight, but he wasn’t disciplined enough
     to turn down big meals, exercise regularly, and go to bed early. When spring training began, he was still overweight, drinking
     heavily, and staying up all hours of the night.
    Manager Miller Huggins repeatedly cautioned Ruth