George Herman Ruth Jr. entered the world on February 6, 1895. He was the eldest of eight children born to George Sr. and Kate Schamberger Ruth. The family life that followed was anything but stable.
George Sr. bore a striking resemblance to his son. Round face. Wide nose. A mouth that mirrored the man who would one day own the record books. His mother was a different story. Kate stood just 4’10”. She was only 19 when Babe was born. She would not live past 36.
Even in her short life, Kate gave birth to seven more siblings. Three boys. Four girls. Two sets of twins among them. She outlived all of her children except Babe and his sister Mary, known as Mamie.
The Ruths struggled. George Sr. had tried various ventures, including his father’s dubious lightning rod business. By the time Babe was born, his father was a saloonkeeper in Baltimore. It was a cutthroat market. Biographer Marshall Smelser notes the saturated competition. There was one licensed beverage seller for every 105 Baltimoreans. That was the highest ratio in the country.
The economic panic of 1893 made it worse. Over 500 banks and 15,000 businesses closed. Locals lost their jobs. Owning a saloon became a fight for survival.
George and Kate responded by working harder. They kept the bar open longer. They missed no prospective customers. Work weeks hit 100 hours. That was the norm.
Their young son was left to his own devices.
He found freedom in the rough-and-tumble streets of the Baltimore harbor. He learned quickly. He adopted the street skills of rowdiness and petty larceny. He ran with older boys. He broke windows. He engaged in high-spirited, mostly harmless hijinks.
Was he a true delinquent? Hardly. He was just a boy without guidance. He hung out with older kids who weren’t good influences. By age seven, he already chewed tobacco.
His main issue was a lack of structure. No real family to keep him in line. To teach him how to behave. His favorite trick was stealing money from the cash drawer. He used it to buy ice cream for neighborhood kids.
He grew fast. In body. In worldliness. He could not stomach school. Truancy was his lifestyle.
Public schools in that era were awful. Overcrowded. Dirty. Staffed by teachers who couldn’t find work at higher-paying private institutions. Classrooms were no fun for an energetic kid like George. Especially one with a taste for street-style rowdy behavior.
His parents were too busy. Kate’s health was failing. They couldn’t rein him in. Ruth didn’t seem to understand the family’s financial plight or his mother’s illness. Years later, he recalled, “I think my mother hated me.”
Unable to control their son, Mr. and Mrs. Ruth took drastic action.
The result would change baseball history forever. But for now, a troubled boy in Baltimore was simply surviving.
For more on the game:
- Baseball
- Minor League Baseball
- Baseball Hall of Fame
