Ruth recognized for humanitarian works
WASHINGTON There are some things about Babe Ruth, beyond his mammoth home runs and World Series titles, that cannot be measured, among them his frequent trips to orphanages and hospitals, and his willingness to play alongside black ballplayers.
“He carried this country on his back during the Great Depression,” said Jane Leavy, author of the Ruth biography, The Big Fella.
“He became the brand of America,” said Michael Gibbons, director emeritus and historian at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore.
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump posthumously honoured baseball’s one-time home run king with the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, in a White House ceremony. Other 2018 recipients included Elvis Presley, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, Senator Orrin Hatch, former NFL great and Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page and conservative political donor Miriam Adelson along with former Supreme Court justice Anthony Scillia.
For Ruth’s family and a legion of historical admirers, their reaction is the same: It’s about time. “It’s wonderful that he’s finally been recognized, but what the heck took so long ?” asked Tom Stevens, Ruth’s grandson.
The president agreed.
“He raised money and raised hell,” Trump said Friday in his opening remarks. “Maybe that’s why it’s taken him a long time to get this award. He should have got it a long time ago. I said, ‘Babe Ruth hasn’t got it?’ We took care of that real fast.”
Ruth is the 14th baseball personality honoured with the medal. Moe Berg was the first, recognized by President Harry Truman for his “exceptionally meritorious service” as a spy in Europe during Second World War. Berg declined the award, but his family accepted it posthumously.
Gerald Ford awarded the medal to baseball’s Joe DiMaggio in 1977 and Ronald Reagan awarded it to Jackie Robinson in 1984. Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully was the most recent baseball recipient, with Barack Obama honouring him in 2016.
All the while, George Herman Ruth Jr., and his immense legacy sat waiting.
“While these other ballplayers are certainly worthy of induction — we’re talking Ted Williams (honoured in 1991) and Jackie Robinson, I just would have thought that Babe would have been invited to take his place among his peers sooner than he did,” Stevens said. “Not just because of who he was in baseball, but the Medal of Freedom is a consideration of all the other aspects of his life. This provides a forum for highlighting Babe as a humanitarian.”
Ruth, who died of cancer in 1948, is noted for his history of good works.
He and agent Christy Walsh visited hospitals and orphanages while they travelled the country during the season or on promotional tours. On barnstorming trips, Ruth routinely played Negro League teams at a time when Major League commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis drew a hard line preserving baseball’s colour barrier.
A lifelong Catholic, Ruth raised money for St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, the boarding school were he lived most of his childhood, once taking the school’s band on tour for fundraisers when the chapel burned down, according to Gibbons. On several occasions, he purchased cars for Brother Matthias Boutlier, one of the school’s prefects, who became his lifelong mentor.
“By nature he was very kind and very generous, probably generous to a fault. It didn’t occur to him to be anything else,” Stevens said. Ruth adopted Stevens’s mother in 1929. Now 102 years old, Julia Ruth Stevens did not travel from her home in Las Vegas to the White House for the ceremony.