Babe Ruth didn’t hang up his spikes because he loved the game. He left because he realized the Boston Braves front office had zero interest in his managerial potential. The contract expired. He was released. Just like that.
So what does a legend do when the stadium lights go dark? He bowls. He hunts, using his legendary eyesight to pick off targets with sniper-like precision. He even picked up a golf club, posting a high-70s average and seriously considering a turn to professional golf.
But he didn’t spend much time watching baseball.
Ruth claimed he tried to get season passes to Yankee Stadium for free. General Manager Ed Barrow might have said no. The story varies. What didn’t vary was Ruth’s insistence that a stadium operator told him he had to pay cash for tickets to the 1936 opener. He helped build “The House that Ruth Built,” but he wasn’t invited to sit in for free.
The Overprotective Dad
With baseball rejecting him, Ruth doubled down on family. He wasn’t just a dad; he was the stereotypical, suffocating father.
Julia Ruth, his adopted daughter, had a midnight curfew. Every date was scrutinized. When Julia got severe strep throat in 1938, Babe dropped everything from an exhibition game in Albany. Doctors needed a transfusion. They checked his blood type. It matched. He gave his blood. She lived.
Three years later, he walked her down the aisle. He looked sharp in black tails and a top hat.
Life in New York was comfortable. Claire, his wife, had saved their money wisely. Endorsement checks kept flowing. The Riverside Drive apartment was a hub. Friends from the old days came over. They played cards. Claire read to him, a habit she’d started when his eyes were still healthy enough to read but he didn’t want to strain them. He beat his mother-in-law at checkers. He filled in for bridge games.
He never missed The Lone Ranger or Gangbusters on the radio.
The Golfer Who Could Have Been Pro
Golf became his main outlet. He was strong. He beat future U.S. and British amateur champion Dick Chapman in a tournament. But his game was flawed. Erratic drives. Weak putting. These flaws killed his pro dreams.
He kept trying, though. St. Alban’s course on Long Island was his haunt. He’d stop at the butcher on the way back for steaks to grill in the clubhouse later.
He was cheerful. He laughed at his own bad shots. He drew crowds.
In a charity match with Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Ruth pulled 12,000 fans. The gallery grew so large that play stopped every time he stepped up to the tee. Fans rushed the fairways. It was chaos. It was fun.
The Hall of Fame and The Hollow Victory
It was a happy time. Or it looked like it. Inside, Ruth was restless. The comfort felt empty. He lacked the adventure of competition.
During winter trips to Florida, he’d drive past spring training sites. He’d yell, “Hiya, slaves!” at the players. It was a joke. But underneath, he wanted to be back out there. He was depressed in those early retirement years. Claire later admitted, “Oh, how I hated baseball and everything in it in those days.”
Then came Cooperstown.
In 1936, the National Baseball Hall of Fame inducted its first class. Ruth was one of the original five. Twenty-two-six sportswriters voted. You needed 170 votes to get in.
Ty Cobb got 222.
Babe Ruth got 215.
Honus Wagner got 215.
Christy Mathewson got 205.
Walter Johnson got 189.
Cobb barely edged him out. Ruth was the youngest inductee.
He went to a Brooklyn Dodgers game in June 1938. The crowd swarmed him. Autograph seekers blocked his path. He wasn’t the main attraction, though. That night, the Dodgers and Reds played the first major league night game in New York City. Johnny Vander Meer of Cincinnati pitched his second consecutive no-hitter.
But Dodgers executive Larry MacPhail wasn’t looking at Vander Meer. He was looking at Ruth.
MacPhail had wanted Ruth years ago when he was with the Reds. Now, the Dodgers were in a three-way war for NYC baseball supremacy. Maybe Ruth’s drawing power could tip the scales.
MacPhail offered him a contract. $15,000. First base coach.
Ruth took it. Naively, he saw it as a step toward managing. He didn’t see the trap. The Dodgers were mediocre. Manager Burleigh Grimes was on his way out. MacPhail had his sights set on Leo Durocher, a brash veteran shortstop and Ruth’s old nemesis from the Yankees days, as the next manager. MacPhail made it clear: Ruth wouldn’t be the manager.
But Ruth was anxious to be back in the game. He signed.
The Gatekeeper
“Babe Ruth belongs in baseball,” MacPhail told the press.
But it was the same song as Boston. No real power. No real responsibility. Ruth was a gate attraction. He took batting practice. He played in exhibitions. He stood at first base and smiled.
He weighed 240 pounds, wearing a stark white uniform. He looked well-rounded. He handled the duties well. His storytelling won over the clubhouse. His banter broke the ice.
Everyone liked him.
Everyone except Leo Durocher.
The rivalry didn’t end with a swing of a bat. It just moved to the dugout. And the manager hated him from day one.
The stands were filling up again, but the real drama started on the warning track. Babe Ruth, 43 years old and staring down a comeback he knew he couldn’t physically make, began lobbing balls into the empty seats during warm-ups. It was a hollow gesture. A final performance for a crowd that loved the myth more than the man.
He tried to break the spell by tearing up his coaching contract and offering to sign a player deal. He wanted in. The Dodgers didn’t want him in.
The Pitching Problem
Charlie Gristle, the 45-year-old former 20-game winner who was now coaching third base, shut it down. “He’s 43 and he can’t see,” Grimes said. It wasn’t just age. It was vision. “If he can hit, I can still pitch.”
Grimes didn’t hold back. He threw batting practice himself, letting Ruth fail against his stuff. The Babe couldn’t touch it. So Ruth settled for soft tosses from Merv Shea, an ex-catcher who knew better than to throw anything hard at an old legend. Grimes was terrified Ruth would get crushed by an inside fastball if he actually stepped into a real box.
So the coaching continued. MacPhail needed the optics, so Grimes went along. He showed the signs. He discussed pitching choices. But the fans were the real win.
Ebbets Field was packed with people who just wanted to be near the icon. Ruth spent hours signing autographs after games. He made sure the kids in the back row got a handshake. Even Donald Davidson, a 13-year-old clubhouse boy who would later become a traveling secretary, got a call from the big man: “Hey kid, you like to play catch?”
Leo Durocher didn’t care about the magic. The man who would become the most famous manager in Brooklyn history still held a grudge. Ruth had snubbed Leo back in 1927 when Leo was a cocky rookie for the Yankees. Now, Leo had a front-row seat to Ruth’s decline.
Signals and Scuffles
Ruth never learned the signs. Maybe it was hard. Maybe it didn’t matter. He didn’t need them to play; he didn’t think he needed them now.
Grimes usually handled the on-field signaling for Brooklyn anyway. But one day, a young reporter messed up. The story ran that Ruth had called a hit-and-run in the eleventh inning, leading to a 1-0 Dodgers win. Grimes had called the play. He screamed at the writer for the lie.
Durocher used it as ammo.
The argument moved to the clubhouse. It turned physical. Just a brief scuffle, but enough to leave a mark under Ruth’s eye. Grimes had to pull them apart.
MacPhail heard about it from a source, not his eyes. If he had ever thought about making Ruth an active player, the dream was dead. The gate attraction was enough. The rest was noise.
The Exit
By year’s end, MacPhail found a way to let Ruth go with some dignity. There was no room for Durocher on a seventh-place team, and there was certainly no room for a ghost.
Three days after Grimes was fired on October 10, Durocher took the manager’s job. A reporter asked if Ruth might replace him.
“Ruth was never considered by us for the post as manager,” MacPhail said. “He could have remained with us as a coach, but he told me that he would not be available.”
Ruth was out of work. Again. The rumors about his trouble with signals sealed his fate. No more major league chances. He turned to golf. Bowling. Hunting. He lived on his own terms, comfortable and free, but occasionally pulled out for baseball events. A showpiece. A relic.
Losing Old Friends
Did Ruth wait by the phone for a managerial call? Maybe. But hope is a stubborn thing. He was still under 45, but the world was changing around him.
In January 1939, Colonel Jacob Ruppert, the owner of the Yankees, died. Ruth visited him in the hospital. The old owner whispered, “Babe, Babe.” He hadn’t called him “Root” in years. Ruth left the room in tears.
Lou Gehrig was dying, too. Nobody knew it yet. After a down year in 1938, Lou stumbled through the 1939 season. He batted .143. He couldn’t field. He couldn’t walk properly. The Mayo Clinic confirmed it: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS.
The consecutive games streak ended at 2,130. May 2, 1938. He never played again.
The Feud Ends
“Lou Gehrig Day” at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939. The stands were full. The tears were flowing. Lou’s speech was clean, dignified, and devastating. “I might have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.”
Ruth watched. He was moved. He walked onto the field to shake Lou’s hand. Instead, he hugged him.
The petty feud between the two legends ended in that embrace. Lou smiled for the first time that day. Ruth cried. He didn’t know it then, but he would be standing in front of a similar crowd, facing similar circumstances, less than a decade later.
Lou died in June 1941. That fall, Ruth was invited to star in Pride of the Yankees. He weighed nearly 270 pounds. He’d had two mild heart attacks in two years. But he was determined to be real.
He went on a strict diet. He lost over 45 pounds before filming started in early 1942. The role was intense. During a scene where the Yankees celebrate a pennant with wrestling on a train, Ruth’s hand went through a Pullman car window. He got severe cuts. Needed stitches.
Then came pneumonia. He spent two weeks in the hospital. Rumors spread that he was dying. Doctors said he was fighting for his life.
He recovered. By April, he was back on the golf course. But the cost was high. The body was giving out. The games were gone. The legend remained.
The War Effort and the Final Blow
Ruth didn’t just smash souvenirs on Pearl Harbor Day. He actually moved the needle for the war effort. In the summer of 1941, he teamed up with his old rival, Ty Cobb. They played a best-of-three golf match. The money went to charity.
Crowds showed up in Boston. Then Long Island. Then Detroit.
Cobb won two of the three. But Ruth kept the cash flowing. He volunteered for the Red Cross. He bought $100,000 in war bonds himself.
By 1943, he was on the radio with Giants slugger Mel Ott. WABC in New York broadcasted the show. Fans could pay to talk to the two greatest hitters in history. $25 got you in. $100 guaranteed it.
He visited military hospitals. Four or five a week. He showed up at movie matinees in the summer of 1943. He asked audiences to donate salvageable materials.
But nothing pleased him more than the 1942 “duel” with Walter Johnson.
Johnson was Washington’s fireballer. He posted a 417-279 career record. Ruth had faced him 9 times. He hit 3 home runs against him. Johnson went 3-6 in matchups with Ruth.
They agreed to meet again. August 23, 1942. Yankee Stadium. A doubleheader.
Babe was batting. He wouldn’t be pitching this time.
While waiting to be announced, they traded jokes.
“Babe, I just want to ask one thing; don’t hit any back to me,” Johnson said.
“Hell, I’ll be lucky to hit one at all,” Ruth laughed. “But I’ll try to pull ’em down the line.”
69,000 fans cheered. Ruth was 47 years old.
He came through twice. First, a line drive into the lower right field stands. Third swing. Then, on the 20th pitch of the next at-bat, a massive smash into the third deck in right field. He rounded the bases. He hugged Johnson at home plate. The ball had hooked foul at the last moment. Nobody cared.
He played in two more charity contests that summer. No more formal games.
His hair was turning gray. In the summer of 1944, he told a New York writer, “It’s hell to grow old.”
He was still magic. Esquire magazine ran a poll in 1944. They named the greatest living sports personality. Ruth outdistanced Joe Louis 4 to 1.
Then came the knee cartilage removal. He inspected it with forceps for the photographers. He refereed a wrestling match. He went to Mexico City. Promoters there were trying to build a doomed league. He got wined and dined.
Then the war ended. His managerial hopes flared up one last time.
Another Disappointment
The Yankees were sold by the Ruppert estate. A syndicate headed by MacPhail took over.
Babe phoned his old friend in the fall of 1946. He offered to manage the Yankees. Or the Newark farm team. He had turned that job down a decade ago. Said it was beneath him. Now he wanted it.
MacPhail said he’d get back to him. A month later, the letter arrived.
“They write the bad news and telephone the good,” Ruth told Claire.
He was right.
MacPhail wrote that Bill Dickey was taking the Newark job. Then came the offer for Babe.
“While I cannot recommend your appointment as manager of the Yankees I believe there is a place in baseball on a basis which should be acceptable to you… There is an important job to be done in the Metropolitan New York area in connection with the promotion and development of sandlot and amateur baseball.”
It was a slap in the face.
Ruth loved kids. He’d do anything for them. But offering him a post with nine-year-olds when he was asking for a major league job? That was insulting.
“Babe walked into the kitchen, numb,” Claire wrote.
He sat on a chair. Head in hands. He had wept there before. In fury. In frustration. He wept again.
His next medical emergency hit around the same time.
