Babe Ruth

On June 13, 1902, seven year-old George Herman Ruth was sent to St. Mary’s Industrial School For Boys, a Catholic school for orphans and delinquents. It turned out to be a lucky break. Ruth's parents owned a bar in working class Baltimore and didn't have the time or the energy to deal with the kid.

George wouldn't be known as Babe for a few years. He was a large and (by his own description) an ugly kid, and his habits were hardly infantile. He began smoking and chewing tobacco when he was seven, drinking beer at age eight. He disliked school but loved games. Ruth would learn to play baseball at St. Mary's from a monk named Brother Matthias. The nuns forced him to learn to write right-handed. Luckily, Matthias left his left-handed hitting and throwing alone.

Babe Ruth appears on pages 16, 50, 59, 74 and 111 in A Book of Ages.