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Babe Ruth was a superstar long before the term was coined. Ruth wasn't merely the best player in baseball during his era… there was nobody else even in the ballpark. Bigger than life, Ruth turned the New York Yankees into the most dominant team the game has ever known.
Ruth began his career as a dominating pitcher, but his hitting prowess resulted in his conversion to a full-time outfielder. After Ruth shattered the home-run record in 1919 (with 29), he was traded to the Yankees for the price of $100,000 together with a $350,000 loan. The loan would finance the enormously successful play, No No Nannette, but the success of the show proved to be a small return on the enormous price of trading Ruth away.
The Red Sox, which had won the World Series in 1918 with Ruth on the mound, would not win another world series until 2004. With Ruth in their lineup, the Yankees would become the most dominant team in the history of the game.
In his first season as a Yankee, Ruth hit 54 home runs, shattering his own record in the process. As the 1920s would progress, Ruth would break that record twice, hitting 59 homers in 1921 and 60 in 1927. That record would stand until 1961. By the end of the decade, Ruth had amassed 516 home runs (339 more than anyone in history.) Ruth would retire after the 1935 season with 714 home runs, a mark that wouldn't be broken for 39 years.
Off the field, Ruth was bigger than life. He loved New York City and he was a regular at bars and clubs and was a notorious womanizer. When he was earning $80,000 back in 1930, a reporter noted that the president, Herbert Hoover, only made $75,000.
"Heck," Ruth was reported to have replied. "I had a better year than he did."
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