Ruth being loaded into the ambulance at Penn Station.
Every paper in the country had this photo then, but it's rare now.
April 9, 1925, 100 years ago: Babe Ruth, the biggest star in baseball, is rushed to the hospital. It becomes known as "The Bellyache Heard 'Round the World."
History remembers the great New York Yankees slugger as a big jolly fat man who loved children and delivered for his fans, baseball's answer to Santa Claus -- or, as his contemporary, sportswriter Jimmy Canon, put it, "Santa Claus drinking his whiskey straight, and complaining of a bellyache." But for much of his career, his 6-foot-2 frame carried a strapping 215 pounds, hardly fat at all.
But his massive appetites, including for food and drink, got him in trouble. He was overweight for much of the 1922 season, and used farmwork at his home in Sudbury, Massachusetts, 23 miles west of downtown Boston, to get in shape for the 1923 season. He remained in good shape for 1923 and 1924.
But the 1924-25 off-season saw him out of control. By the time he got to Hot Springs, Arkansas -- where Spring Training had been invented in 1885 by Cap Anson of the team now known as the Chicago Cubs, to "boil the beer out" of his players, Ruth was 256 pounds. On this annual "Babe Boil," he lost 30 pounds.
But Hot Springs had become a resort town, with all kinds of illegal establishments, from bars (it was the middle of Prohibition) to casinos to houses of otherwise ill repute -- to satisfy yet another of the Babe's irresistible-force appetites, while his wife, Helen, and their daughter, Dorothy, were left behind in Sudbury.
He suffered abdominal pains and a fever in Hot Springs, before joining the Yankees in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Yankees had previously trained in New Orleans, but, already known as America's biggest party city, it offered too many temptations for the Great Bambino. So they moved to St. Pete, where they stayed until 1961.
(They moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1962, and the Mets took up the Yankees' former complex at Miller Huggins Field, renaming it Huggins-Stengel Field. The Mets moved to Port St. Lucie in 1988, and the Yankees moved to Tampa in 1996. Huggins-Stengel Field is still in use for amateur baseball.)
While in St. Pete, Ruth fell ill again. On April 7, as the team's train headed north, it stopped in Asheville, North Carolina, where the Yankees were to play an exhibition game. Ruth collapsed on the platform, and was hospitalized. The team played the game without him.
Trying to get back to New York, he missed a train connection, making him unable to meet the team in Washington. This story got around the world, and, like a "game of telephone," it got wilder until a newspaper in London printed that the Sultan of Swat was dead at the age of 31. (He was actually 30. How he didn't know his own birthdate is a story for another time.) He sent a telegram to Helen, telling her to meet him in New York, so she would know he was alive.
As his train got through New Jersey on its way to Pennsylvania Station on April 9, Ruth, having just had a typically huge breakfast, lost consciousness in the train's rest room. He was taken to his sleeping compartment, and, upon arrival, its window had to be removed to get him out on a stretcher. He went into convulsions in the ambulance, and it took 6 attendants to hold him down. He was given a sedative, and taken to St. Vincent's Hospital at 14th Street and 7th Avenue in Greenwich Village.
What did Ruth have? Sportswriter W.O. McGeehan wrote that Ruth's illness was due to binging on hot dogs and soda pop before a game -- a "safe for public consumption" story. Because of this, it became known as "The Bellyache Heard 'Round the World." A report from his doctor, issued through the Yankees' front office, said that Ruth had a "fistula" -- essentially, a gastric ulcer. Also, a safe story.
Decades later, a distant cousin on his father's side said that Crohn's disease, an inflammation of the colon (the large intestine), runs in the Ruth family. This would explain the symptoms, but Crohn's tends to be a chronic issue, and this was the only time in Ruth's life that he suffered such symptoms.
Given Ruth's carousing, there has been a rumor ever since that he was suffering from some sort of sexually-transmitted disease. Supposedly, this was confirmed by Yankee general manager Ed Barrow. But Ruth underwent surgery on April 17, and surgery has never been a typical treatment for either syphilis or gonorrhea, the 2 main venereal diseases.
In 1959, in her memoir, Claire Ruth, the Babe's 2nd wife, wrote that it was something that couldn't be mentioned in polite company at the time, but not V.D.: It was a torn groin muscle. But that wouldn't have explained the fever or the faintings.
In his 1938 memoir Farewell to Sport, sportswriter Paul Gallico wrote, "A baseball player lay close to death and an entire nation held its breath, worried and fretted, and bought every edition of the newspapers to read the bulletins as though the life of a personal friend or a member of the family were at stake." (And, remember, this was before his epic 1927 season, or his 1932 "called shot.") There was no 24-hour TV news or social media to spread the stories, true or otherwise. Even radio broadcasting was still in its infancy.
On April 24, with the Babe still hospitalized, Helen collapsed on the grounds of St. Vincent's, having "a complete nervous breakdown." She couldn't take all the talk about his illness, and the various things that could have caused it.
They separated not long thereafter. He wasn't too Catholic to cheat on her, but he was too Catholic to ever divorce her. She eventually left him for another man, and died in a house fire in 1929. Ruth seemed genuinely sad at her funeral. However, just three months later, he married Claire, who had basically been the real Mrs. Ruth since 1923.
Ruth didn't make his season debut until June 1, and had his worst season as a Yankee. Several other Yankees weren't hitting, either. Indeed, between June 1, 1925 -- also the day Lou Gehrig's playing streak began -- and April 13, 1926, the next season's Opening Day, the starters were replaced at 1st base, 2nd base, shortstop, center field and catcher. Respectively: Wally Pipp was replaced by Gehrig, Aaron Ward was replaced by Tony Lazzeri, Everett Scott was replaced by Mark Koenig, Whitey Witt was replaced by Earle Combs; and Wally Schang was replaced by a platoon of Mike Gazella, Pat Collins and Benny Bengough. (It is odd that the 1927 Yankees, often considered the greatest team of all time, were weak at the most important position, catcher.)
What's more, Ruth talked to the one athlete in the 1920s who could match him for press attention, the Heavyweight Champion of the World, Jack Dempsey. Dempsey lent Ruth one of his trainers, Artie McGovern. This made Ruth perhaps the 1st person in America, other than prizefighters like Dempsey and actors, to have what would now be called a personal trainer. He whipped Ruth back into shape.
1926, 31: .372, 47, 153, 226, 91-63, Won Pennant, but lost World Series
1927, 32: .356, 60, 165, 225, 110-44, Won World Series
1928, 33: .323, 54, 146, 206, 101-53, Won World Series
1929, 34: .345, 46, 154, 193, 88-66, 2nd place
1930, 35: .359, 49, 153, 211, 86-68, 3rd place
1931, 36: .373, 46, 162, 218, 94-59, 2nd place
1932, 37: .341, 41, 137, 201, 107-47, Won World Series
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