The St. Mary's Miracle

Ninety-five years ago this spring, Baltimore landed the greatest young talent in baseball history

By Tom Flynn

The greatest Oriole of them all, Babe Ruth was lost to a mid-summer fire sale. (Courtesy of Sports Legends)

Orioles owner Jack Dunn knew the spring of 1914 would be tough. The Sun was running articles all winter about the upstart Federal League, a so-called third major league that would have a Baltimore entry beginning play in April.

As February wore on, Dunn didn't need to read the Sun; across the street from his own park the Fed's ballpark was being thrown up quickly for Opening Day. The echo of a dozen hammers could be heard at all hours.

The new Terrapin Park was a colossus compared to Dunn's Oriole Park. Dunn had a grandstand from first base around home to third, but the new place had a towering seating area that would extend all the way down the left field and right field lines. Terrapin Park shouted majors and Dunn's park minors, loud and clear.

It was Ned Hanlon who had a hand in all this mess. Hanlon, manager of the great 1890s National League Orioles, was one of the Terrapins' owners. It was Hanlon who had started the minor league Orioles that Dunn now owned. It was Hanlon who managed Dunn in 1899 when both were briefly in Brooklyn (Dunn won 23 games that year, thanks in part to Hanlon). Now it was Hanlon who he had to beat.

Dunn wasn't idle in light of the new threat to his ballclub. He had fought through hard times before. As a child growing up in New Jersey, his left arm had been so damaged in an accident that a doctor told his mother that the 9-year-old's limb would have to be amputated or he would die.

"If it makes no difference to you, I'd just as soon die with my arm on," he reportedly told the two. The arm stayed, and Dunn lived.

He couldn't raise that arm above his head for the rest of his life, yet he made it to the major leagues. He played for both John McGraw and Hanlon, two of the greatest managers the game had ever seen. Dunn developed their same eye for talent and had a special knack for spotting ballplayers around Baltimore, guys that other people missed. Fritz Maisel turned up in nearby Catonsville and now was playing third base for the Yankees. He had stolen 44 bases for the Orioles in 1913 to lead the league, and then left before the season was through for the big leagues, where he stole another 25. Nobody could throw him out.

Now word was making it up from the same area, down near Wilkens Avenue, that St. Mary's Industrial School had a boy that Dunn should see. He wanted another player; a pitcher at Mount St. Joseph's College, but Brother Gilbert Cairnes at St. Joe's had a national powerhouse on his hands and wasn't going to part with a star pitcher so easily. He suggested a boy over at St. Mary's, a left-handed pitcher named George Herman Ruth. Dunn respected the brother's opinion and with the Terrapins breathing down his neck, it was worth a look. Hell, if Hanlon got wind of him he'd be gone soon enough.

Accounts vary on Ruth's signing. A fellow student at St. Mary's described a game involving the Babe staged for Dunn's viewing. Ruth's autobiography mentions throwing for a half-hour for Dunn before he was signed. Brother Gilbert's later printed version, written along with longtime Baltimore sportswriter Rodger Pippen, varies from both accounts.

According to Gilbert, there was no game because of the cold February weather. Brother Gilbert, Dunn and Maisel traveled in Maisel's car to visit Brother Matthias, the St. Mary's prefect who, along with the school's other Xaverian Brothers, oversaw the boy in class and on the diamond.

The trio spoke with Matthias, and received a concise assessment of his talents.

"Ruth can hit," said Matthias.

"Can he pitch?" the Orioles' manager asked.

"Sure, he can do anything," Matthias responded.

Dunn looked the boy over. He was big enough, certainly, and signing him would at least ensure the Terrapins didn't get him right away, even if he didn't work out. So on Feb. 22, 1914, at age 19, Ruth became a Baltimore Oriole.

Dunn wasted no time in getting Ruth to training camp in Fayetteville, N.C. It was best to get him out of town before Hanlon had at him. A contract would not get in Hanlon's way; all winter the Federal League had convinced major league players to "jump" contracts over to their league.

From there, the legend of Babe Ruth quickly took root. On March 7, Ruth hit a home run in practice so far that 38 years later, in 1952, 10,000 Fayetteville residents attended a ceremony to place a plaque where it landed.

In mid-March, Ruth became Babe Ruth, as Pippen overheard Steinman allude to the kid as one of "Dunnie's babes" and found the perfect nickname for the teenaged marvel. Later that same month Ruth shut down the major league Phillies and then the world champion Philadelphia A's. Just weeks removed from St. Mary's schoolyard and Ruth was handling the A's.

In a letter to Brother Gilbert, Dunn stated simply, "Brother, this fellow Ruth is the greatest young ballplayer who ever reported to a training camp."

Unfortunately for Dunn, time was running out on Ruth's stay with the Orioles before it ever started. The Terrapins opened to 30,000 fans and towering front page headlines on April 13. The Orioles battled the New York Giants in an exhibition the same day before fewer than 1,000. Ruth won his first start later in April before perhaps 200 fans.

Dunn undoubtedly had the better team but Hanlon had the better label. The Orioles were 47-22 on July 4 and Ruth had 14 wins, but it didn't matter.

Dunn was bleeding money with each game. He was faced with a simple and painful solution: sell players or lose his franchise. On July 10, Ruth, pitcher Ernie Shore and catcher and captain Ben Egan were on a train north to Boston, sold to the Red Sox for an announced price of $25,000, although the true sum was likely less.

The greatest Oriole of them all, and Dunn's greatest find, was lost to a mid-summer fire sale.

Issue 135: March 2009

The Kids Can't Take It If We Don't Give It!

October 1948

by GEORGE HERMAN RUTH, Babe Ruth's Last Message, from Guideposts magazine

Bad boy Ruth-that was me.

Don't get the idea that I'm proud of my harum-scarum youth. I'm not. I simply had a rotten start in life, and it took me a long time to get my bearings.

Looking back to my youth, I honestly don't think I knew the difference between right and wrong. I spent much of my early boyhood living over my father's saloon, in Baltimore-and when I wasn't living over it, I was in it, soaking up the atmosphere. I hardly knew my parents.

St. Mary's Industrial School in Baltimore, where I was finally taken, has been called an orphanage and a reform school. It was, in fact, a training school for orphans, incorrigibles, delinquents and runaways picked up on the streets of the city. I was listed as an incorrigible. I guess I was. Perhaps I would always have been but for Brother Matthias, the greatest man I have ever known, and for the religious training I received there which has since been so important to me.

I doubt if any appeal could have straightened me out except a Power over and above man-the appeal of God. Iron-rod discipline couldn't have done it. Nor all the punishment and reward systems that could have been devised. God had an eye out for me, just as He has for you, and He was pulling for me to make the grade.

As I look back now, I realize that knowledge of God was a big crossroads with me. I got one thing straight (and I wish all kids did)-that God was Boss. He was not only my Boss but Boss of all my bosses. Up till then, like all bad kids, I hated most of the people who had control over me and could punish me. I began to see that I had a higher Person to reckon with who never changed, whereas my earthly authorities changed from year to year. Those who bossed me had the same self-battles-they, like me, had to account to God. I also realized that God was not only just, but merciful. He knew we were weak and that we all found it easier to be stinkers than good sons of God, not only as kids but all through our lives.

That clear picture, I'm sure, would be important to any kid who hates a teacher, or resents a person in charge. This picture of my relationship to man and God was what helped relieve me of bitterness and rancor and a desire to get even.

I've seen a great number of "he-men" in my baseball career, but never one equal to Brother Matthias. He stood six feet six and weighed 250 pounds. It was all muscle. He could have been successful at anything he wanted to in life-and he chose the church.

It was he who introduced me to baseball. Very early he noticed that I had some natural talent for throwing and catching. He used to back me in a corner of the big yard at St. Mary's and bunt a ball to me by the hour, correcting the mistakes I made with my hands and feet. I never forget the first time I saw him hit a ball. The baseball in 1902 was a lump of mush, but Brother Matthias would stand at the end of the yard, throw the ball up with his left hand, and give it a terrific belt with the bat he held in his right hand. The ball would carry 350 feet, a tremendous knock in those days. I would watch him bug-eyed.

Thanks to Brother Matthias I was able to leave St. Mary's in 1914 and begin my professional career with the famous Baltimore Orioles. Out on my own... free from the rigid rules of a religious school . . . boy, did it go to my head. I began really to cut capers.

I strayed from the church, but don't think I forgot my religious training. I just overlooked it. I prayed often and hard, but like many irrepressible young fellows, the swift tempo of living shoved religion into the background.

So what good was all the hard work and ceaseless interest of the Brothers, people would argue? You can't make kids religious, they say, because it just won't take. Send kids to Sunday School and they too often end up hating it and the church.

Don't you believe it. As far as I'm concerned, and I think as far as most kids go, once religion sinks in, it stays there - deep down. The lads who get religious training, get it where it counts-in the roots. They may fail it, but it never fails them. When the score is against them, or they get a bum pitch, that unfailing Something inside will be there to draw on. I've seen it with kids. I know from the letters they write me. The more I think of it, the more important I feel it is to give kids "the works" as far as religion is concerned. They'll never want to be holy-they'll act like tough monkeys in contrast, but somewhere inside will be a solid little chapel. It may get dusty from neglect, but the time will come when the door will be opened with much relief. But the kids can't take it, if we don't give it to them.

I've been criticized as often as I've praised for my activities with kids on the grounds that what I did was for publicity. Well, criticism doesn't matter. I never forgot where I came from. Every dirty-faced kid I see is another useful citizen. No one knew better than I what it meant not to have your own home, a backyard, your own kitchen and icebox. That's why all through the years, even when the big money was rolling in, I'd never forget

St. Mary's, Brother Matthias and the boys I left behind. I kept going back.

As I look back those moments when I let the kids down-they were my worst. I guess I was so anxious to enjoy life to the fullest that I forgot the rules or ignored them. Once in a while you can get away with it, but not for long. When I broke training, the effects were felt by myself and by the ball team-and even by the fans.

While I drifted away from the church, I did have my own "altar," a big window of my New York apartment overlooking the city lights. Often I would kneel before that window and say my prayers. I would feel quite humble then. Id ask God to help me not make such a big fool of myself and pray that I'd measure up to what He expected of me.

In December, 1946 I was in French Hospital, New York, facing a serious operation. Paul Carey, one of my oldest and closest friends, was by my bed one night.

"They're going to operate in the morning, Babe," Paul said. "Don't you think you ought to put your house in order?"

I didn't dodge the long, challenging look in his eyes. I knew what he meant. For the first time I realized that death might strike me out. I nodded, and Paul got up, called in a Chaplain, and I made a full confession.

"I'll return in the morning and give you Holy Communion," the chaplain said," But you don't have to fast."

"I'll fast," I said. I didn't have even a drop of water.

As I lay in bed that evening I thought to myself what a comforting feeling to be free from fear and worries. I now could simply turn them over to God. Later on, my wife brought in a letter from a little kid in Jersey City. "Dear Babe", he wrote, "Everybody in the seventh grade class is pulling and praying for you. I am enclosing a medal, which if you wear will make you better. Your pal-Mike Quinlan.

P.S. I know this will be your 61st homer. You'll hit it."

I asked them to pin the Miraculous Medal to my pajama coat. I've worn the medal constantly ever since. I'll wear it to my grave.

This is Babe Ruth's last mesquite. It was written with the help of friends

Joe L. Brown (of the MGM Studios which produced "The Babe Ruth Story"*),

Paul Carey, and Melvyn G. Lowenstein not long before the Babe died. The

Guideposts office received it on the fatal day-August 16, 1948.

We bring it to our readers as a notable guidepost to the solution of the serious problem of juvenile delinquency, it is the simple, honest story of a man who relearned what faith meant, and who says so humbly and proudly, knowing it was his most valuable legacy to his fellow man.

Before he died, Babe Ruth demonstrated his love and gratitude to American kids. Through the Babe Ruth Foundation boys will receive scholarships, funds to set up sports programs, and prizes for special achievements-the primary aim of the Foundation to help develop good character among the youth of America.

Albert B. Chandler, Commissioner of Baseball, Ford Frick, President of the National League, Will Harriadge, President of the American League, Eric Johnston, head of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, and Grantland Rice, dean of American sportswriters are some of the directors who will see that it carries on and does a job.

Birth Name:	George Herman Ruth
Nickname:	The Bambino or The Sultan of Swat
Born On:	02-06-1895
Born In:	Baltimore, Maryland
Zodiac:	Aquarius
Died On:	08-16-1948
Died In:	New York, New York
Cemetery:	Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Hawthorne, New York

College:	None Attended
Bats:	Left
Throws:	Left
Height:	6-02
Weight:	215
First Game:	07-11-1914 (Age 19)
Last Game:	05-30-1935
Draft:	Not Applicable