Babe Ruth

When Alex. Brown & Sons, Baltimore's venerable investment house, went shopping for a star to showcase in a recent advertising campaign, it figured to limit the search to people with credentials in the world of high finance.Louis Rukeyser.Ross Perot.Maybe even Eli Jacobs.But after much brainstorming, Alex. Brown officials came up with a surprising choice: Babe Ruth.Not that Ruth ever so much as balanced his checkbook. But he did possess a quality the company was seeking, namely, a mammoth reputation as a home run hitter that overshadowed his early success as a left-handed pitcher.

Saint Agnes Hospital and the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation said Friday that they have raised $1.4 million to renovate the baseball field of the former Cardinal Gibbons School, preserving a site where Babe Ruth once played. The hospital, meanwhile, is firming up plans to add homes and offices around the field, on the campus of the Catholic school that closed in 2010. Saint Agnes plans to break ground on the baseball field within the next year, launching what officials have envisioned as Gibbons Commons, a mixed-use development on Caton Avenue, across the street from the hospital.

They pass through the tiny row home at a steady clip, 50,000 pilgrims a year on a mission to visit their mecca. Here, in a second-floor bedroom of a narrow little residence on Emory Street, on a bitter cold day in 1895, George Herman Ruth was born. Humble digs, indeed, for one who'd grow up to be larger than life. But as Lorie Vaughan toured Babe Ruth's birthplace on Tuesday, she said the locale wasn't as important as the aura around it. "I've been to Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home)

July 7, 2001: Brady Anderson's bases-loaded triple gives the slumping Orioles a 4-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies before an announced 49,072, then the largest gathering to see a regular-season game at Camden Yards. "That's the first big base hit we've had in the last ... six days," manager Mike Hargrove says. The Birds will lose 14 of their next 16 games. July 6, 1983: Dick Edell becomes the seventh men's lacrosse coach in Terrapins history and declares: "It's great to be home.

Despite fierce opposition, slugger captures stadium name 0) game with late rallyThe two favorites in the stadium debate dueled head-to-head this past week in "It's Your Call," and after a slow start out of the gate, Babe Ruth Stadium put on furious stretch drive to beat out Camden Yards.Two days into the poll, Camden Yards had 774 votes to Babe Ruth Stadium's 447. But over the weekend, the Babe Ruth Stadium forces rallied to finish with 1,728 votes to 1,226 for Camden Yards in the final "It's Your Call" balloting.

When the new Orioles stadium at Camden Yards is inaugurated next year, Babe Ruth's birthplace will be only a fly-ball away. A museum consisting of four row houses has operated at 212-218 Emory Street since 1974, commemorating the great slugger's roots in Baltimore and his career with the New York Yankees.As exhibits have increased and word has gotten around about the museum, the number of visitors has zoomed. Close to 35,000 fans paid homage to the Babe last year. That number is likely to triple at the very least when the Orioles move to the new downtown ballpark.

It's difficult, seven decades later, to fully appreciate the hold Babe Ruth had on the American public. Not just baseball fans, let alone New York Yankees fans. Everyone. And not just because of his incredible prowess in the batter's box. His gargantuan personality -- a mixture of Falstaff and Pete Rose -- made him an idol whose every action was grist not only for the newspapers but also the topic of the day at office water coolers and rural soda fountains.And this in an era before media hype.

This week, The Sun celebrates the 100th anniversary of Babe Ruth's birth on Feb. 6. Today, a 14-page commemorative section looks at the life and times of America's greatest sports legend, the Baltimore-born boy who became baseball's first prolific home run hitter.

The Babe Ruth League Inc., a national youth baseball organization, is naming its largest division the Cal Ripken Baseball Division.Beginning next spring, the 471,000-player division for youth aged 5 to 12 will take the name of the Orioles third baseman and his recently deceased father, a former Orioles manager.The division is currently named "Bambino," a nickname of Babe Ruth.At a Camden Yards news conference yesterday, Ripken said he hopes Cal Ripken division players will be imbued with the "Ripken way" of baseball taught by his father.

More than 200 guests crowded into the screening room of the ESPNZone at the Inner Harbor to celebrate the coming baseball season and to raise money for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum's planned expansion into historic Camden Station at Oriole Park."

They pass through the tiny row home at a steady clip, 50,000 pilgrims a year on a mission to visit their mecca. Here, in a second-floor bedroom of a narrow little residence on Emory Street, on a bitter cold day in 1895, George Herman Ruth was born. Humble digs, indeed, for one who'd grow up to be larger than life. But as Lorie Vaughan toured Babe Ruth's birthplace on Tuesday, she said the locale wasn't as important as the aura around it. "I've been to Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home)

Sixty miles east of Babe Ruth's birthplace, in the drowsy town of Sudlersville (population 497), stands a statue of the other great slugger from Maryland's past. But you'll have to stop at the town's only red light, corner of Church and Main, to view the life-size likeness of Jimmie Foxx at roadside. From his follow-through swing to the look on his face, it's clear that the bronzed Foxx has just done what he did 534 times in his 20-year career - he knocked one out of the park. That lusty swing landed the Queen Anne's County farmboy in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

A recent article about the declining marriage business in Elkton suggested there was an "unconfirmed" report that Babe Ruth had been married there ("Wedding chapel and amenities for sale in Elkton," Dec. 28). Such reports are not only unconfirmed, they are completely untrue - despite the claims of several publications, including the Cecil County government tourism Web site. At the age of 19, after his first season in professional baseball, George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. married Helen Woodford, a waitress whom he met in Boston.

Lola M. Baxter, a retired telephone operator and receptionist who greeted guests at the WMAR television studios, died of complications from a broken hip Aug. 26 at Gilchrist Hospice Care of Howard County. She was 101 and had lived in Towson. Born Lola Marie Annen in Baltimore, she lived in the 2900 block of Greenmount Ave. in Waverly and could recall how the International League Orioles played their games immediately behind her family's home at old Oriole Park. She told her children that she watched Babe Ruth play baseball there.

September 26, 1961: Roger Maris tied Babe Ruth's single-season home run mark by hitting his 60th of the season against the Orioles.

As artist Joseph Sheppard pondered creating a statue of one of baseball's icons, one image of Brooks Robinson kept flashing through his mind: having stabbed a scorching grounder, the Orioles' third baseman readies to throw out the runner at first. Eyes fixed on his target, ball firmly in grasp, Robinson appears predictable, orderly, calm. "Of the hundreds of photos of Brooks that I studied, that pose kept popping up, all through his [23-year] career," Sheppard said. "Whether he had a crew cut or long hair, wore loose pants or tight pants on the field, that pose never changed.

Whether handing out milk, dishing out ice cream or taking time out to visit a sick child, Babe Ruth had an affinity for children. His visits to hospitals and orphanges were innumberable. Often described as "just a big kid," Ruth felt so at ease with children perhaps because he was so like them in many ways.

The Babe Ruth Museum will be host to "Babe Ruth Centennial Weekend II" tomorrow until Tuesday, beginning with a card show and concluding with the unveiling of a Babe Ruth monument at Oriole Park.* The Babe Ruth Museum Baseball Card Show, with former Orioles managers Hank Bauer and Earl Weaver, will take place tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Marriott Inner Harbor.Admission is $2. Autographs will be signed from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and cost $4 each.* On Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., fans can meet three people who knew Ruth: his daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens; New York Yankees Hall of Fame broadcaster Mel Allen; and former Washington Senators pitcher Paul Hopkins, who threw the pitch Ruth hit for his 59th home run in 1927.

I am having a disturbing recurring thought about the plight of the Baltimore Orioles. If Buck Showalter is not the appointed savior of this franchise, then who is? Orioles fans are preparing for yet another season of mediocrity as the dog days of the season approach. A major achievement for this team would be playing .500 ball. Game attendance is waning as local sports fans anxiously await the beginning of the NFL pre-season. Most Baltimoreans know the history of the Camden Yards area.

Paul Francis "Knobby" Harris Sr., a retired lawyer, former professional baseball player and author who wrote about the life of Babe Ruth, died Friday of cancer and heart disease at his Catonsville home. He was 85. Born and raised in West Baltimore, Mr. Harris graduated from St. Edward Parochial School and from Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington in 1943. He had picked up the nickname of "Knobby" from his father, after arriving home one day with a bump on his head from a fall.