For Babe Ruth’s Descendant, a Surprise

By TERESA WINCHESTER

Visits to Cooperstown have always been part of Amanda Stevens’ life.

For the annual Baseball Hall of Fame Induction, her family would rent a house here and stay for several days. (Her father and brother still make the yearly pilgrimage.) And she often had a chance to meet Major League ballplayers. (Cal Ripken Jr. is her favorite.)

For Stevens, now living in Cambridge, Mass., is Babe Ruth’s great-granddaughter.
“There are many opportunities I’m blessedto have had because of it,” Stevens said Friday, June 13, after attending the opening of “Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend,” at the Baseball Hall of Fame. The occasion was the 75th anniversary celebration of the first Induction, but it was also the 100th anniversary of the Great Bambino’s entry into the major leagues.

Ruth – along with Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner – was a member of the first class of inductees into Hall of Fame in 1937. The new exhibit expands space already dedicated to baseball’s most revered legend and highlights the star’s ascent in and exit from the world of baseball.

In the exhibit, Ruth’s story – an American hero’s rise to greatness from poverty – is told through news clippings, baseball cards and posters affixed scrapbook-style to the walls. It is interspersed with encased bats, balls, uniforms, equipment, and other memorabilia, including a ticket to the 1932 World Series game where Ruth purportedly pointed to centerfield on a 2-2 count before knocking a homer over the centerfield fence. This pre-hit gesture is known in baseball lingo as “the called shot.”

Videos help viewers experience Ruth’s life both on and off the ball field. Particularly compelling is the clip of Ruth’s farewell to baseball in which a movie camera catches The Sultan of Swat in a position identical to Nat Fein’s iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, “The Babe Bows Out.”

In both formats, the once robust Babe, now visibly frail, back turned to the camera, ball cap in his left hand, supporting himself with his right by leaning on a bat retrieved impromptu from HoF Yankees pitcher Bob Feller, bids good-bye to a Yankee Stadium crowd of nearly 50,000.

Coincidentally, June 13 marked the 66th anniversary of Ruth’s farewell appearance.

In an interview after she toured the exhibit, Stevens said she was genuinely pleased.

“It’s a terrific way to keep his memory alive through the generations. My family really appreciates all the hard work to make the exhibit possible. It’s important to us,” she said.

Stevens has her own role in perpetuating her ancestor’s legacy. She is involved with other family members in the management of www.baberuthcentral, which contains biography, statistics, fan stories, videos, audio interviews, photos, and special section for kids, who so famously adored Ruth.

Perusing the exhibit, Amanda – for the first time – saw a photo of her great-grandmother Claire Merritt Hodgson Ruth with George Herman “Babe” Ruth on their April 17, 1929, wedding day. Claire was Ruth’s second wife and remained married to him until his death in 1948. Claire Ruth died in 1976.

“I hadn’t seen that picture before. Family photos are what I’m most passionate about,” Stevens said. Perhaps it was her lucky day, too.