Making of a Legend

“If you’ve been to the Museum before, you won’t recognize the exhibit even though it will be in the same space,” said Shieber, the Ruth exhibit’s lead curator who is charged with sifting through hundreds of Ruth artifacts and ephemera to create the new second-floor time capsule. “As a team, we started out with what seemed to be a simple question: ‘Why do an exhibit on Babe Ruth?’

“The answer – his status as a legend – constantly informs us as we go about making choices for the exhibit.”

Born Feb. 6, 1895 in Baltimore, Md., Ruth came of age as mass communication devices like radio and movies shrunk the distance from sea to sea. As a young left-handed pitcher with the Red Sox, he was one of the game’s heroes. But later as a power-hitting outfielder for the Yankees, Ruth became an icon – transcending sport.

Ruth became the first star of a world where virtually every citizen could share in common media experiences. The Museum’s new exhibit will give visitors the chance to encounter Ruth’s grandeur in the words of the people who saw it.

“The design of this exhibit is very different than anything we’ve ever done before,” said Erik Strohl, the Museum’s vice president for exhibitions and collections. “It (borrows) from the concept of a scrapbook, where you can read about Ruth through contemporary sources such as real newspaper stories, historic photographs and rare ephemera.

“It’s stories like that which fill out the picture of his legend and what he meant to America.”

The exhibit features documents like:

 The contract that transferred Ruth, Ernie Shore and Ben Egan from the Baltimore Orioles of the International League to the Red Sox on July 11, 1914.
 The type-written notes used by AL president Will Harridge for his speech on Babe Ruth Day at Yankee Stadium on April 27, 1947. Harridge – himself a Hall of Famer – typed the words: “To say ‘Babe Ruth’ is to say ‘Baseball’”

The exhibit also contains one of the most famous jerseys Ruth ever wore – but one that never saw a big league game.

“We have his jersey from June 13, 1948 – when Ruth’s No. 3 was officially retired,” Shieber said. “That day, after the ceremony at Yankee Stadium that featured the Pulitzer Prize-winning Nat Fein photo of Ruth standing on the field, Ruth gave the jersey he wore to a Hall of Fame representative. Through research conducted last year, we determined that the jersey was one he wore throughout his retirement – starting with his cameo appearance in “Pride of the Yankees” in 1942. It was a movie costume, but the Babe wore it over the next few years at benefit games, like one where he faced Walter Johnson in a drive for war bonds and another where he met Ted Williams for the first time.

“I cannot imagine a more important or significant non game-used uniform.”

When cancer claimed Ruth’s life in 1948, he was only 53 years old. Yet the tales of his legend were enough to fill multiple lifetimes – and continued to grow along with the game itself.

Ruth embodied the country that had given a poor young boy the chance to rise as high as his talents would take him.

Other ballplayers have had one or two legendary moments, but Ruth collected them by the dozen. Perhaps his most famous was the “Called Shot Home Run” from the 1932 World Series. “Historians still argue whether or not Ruth really predicted the home run just seconds before he hit it,” Shieber said. “But, even if we discovered definitive proof that his Called Shot did not happen, the story would still resonate. It would still be legendary.

“It’s the fact that Ruth’s impact goes so far beyond baseball that makes him truly exceptional.”

So far beyond baseball, in fact, that the borders of his own country could not hold Ruth’s legend.

“There are accounts of Japanese troops attacking American soldiers in World War II yelling ‘To hell with Babe Ruth!’” Shieber said. “They weren’t yelling ‘To hell with FDR!” They knew that it invoking Ruth’s name would mean something much more.”

Craig Muder is the director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum