THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 6, 1995 TAG: 9502060137
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
It's a good thing Babe Ruth came along when he did, because we wouldn't know what to do with him today.
Imagine America of the '90s trying to get a handle on the Bambino's ascension from street urchin to the most-beloved athlete who ever lived.
We'd feel compelled to put a different spin on this tale of the inner-city castoff who grew into an earthy, roguish figure of mythic proportions. We'd feel an obligation to be suspicious.
Otherwise, we would risk looking as corny and gullible as our grandparents, and we wouldn't want that. It wouldn't be cool.
Naturally, we'd do our best to reduce Ruth in stature, both as an athlete and man. This is the '90s, after all.
A so-called friend from St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys would write an alleged tell-all book about George Herman Ruth in which he would claim that the Babe was a bed wetter.
Somebody, in turn, would convince the Babe to come out with a book accusing his parents of neglect and abuse. The project would be justified on the grounds that it was an important part of Ruth's therapy.
Meanwhile, Geraldo would ask Ruth's mother to appear on TV to explain her side of the story as part of a show on famous children of dysfunctional families.
A major part of Ruth's legend was his Homeric appetite for hot dogs and beer (not to mention women). But today, the health police would charge him with having unacceptably high levels of cholesterol. Ruth would be sentenced to five years of filming granola commercials.
Who knows where it would end? Possibly, Newt Gingrich, noting that Ruth spent 12 years as an inmate at St. Mary's in Baltimore, would invite him to Capitol Hill to promote orphanage construction.
If the Babe bestrode our satellite-linked world, his modern image couldn't match the enormity of the myth. We just don't take our larger-than-life figures seriously, the way we did when this man-child was the planet's most exciting personality.
For sure, legends and lies help keep Ruth's story alive more than 46 years after his death. But his big-heartedness, like his huge appetite, was not a fabrication. His love of children was no myth. The best of him was true to the caricatures.
We roll our eyes at stories of the Babe promising home runs to hospitalized kids. Like so much about his life, though, the facts are often more preposterous than the fables.
At the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore, Johnny Sylvester's baseball sits behind glass. On the ball's cover is Ruth's autograph and the pledge made to the sickly youth during the 1926 Series: ``I'll knock a homer for Wednesday's game.''
The Babe knocked three.
These and other artifacts from Ruth's career will get special attention today, Babe's 100th birthday.
A narrow, red brick row house at 216 Emory Street is the center of the celebration. The Babe's birthplace, located only a Ruthian blast from Camden Yards, has been lovingly turned into a shrine.
There, prisoners of the '90s can get a sense for why Ruth was not only a product of his particular time, but an unforgettable figure for our time, as well. by CNB