Trailer
Plot summary
In 1902, George Herman Ruth Sr. leaves his seven-year-old son, George Herman Ruth Jr., at St. Mary's, a Baltimore orphanage and reformatory, because he cannot raise the boy by himself. The other children mock Ruth for his size, and Catholic missionaries do his schooling. Brother Matthias Boutlier, the head of discipline, first brings baseball to him. In batting practice Ruth drives several towering home runs. By 1914, at nineteen, he pitches and hits with power for the school team. Manager Jack Dunn adopts him and signs him to the Baltimore Orioles, who sell him to the Boston Red Sox.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Babe (1992)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film softens the real story of the boy Ruth promised a home run to: the 11-year-old had fallen off a horse and suffered from persistent osteomyelitis, he did not have the prolonged hospital stay seen in the film, and the promise was written on a baseball that sportswriters passed around the dugout.
- The 1932 “called shot” is still debated: biographer Glenn Stout noted that Ruth and the Cubs razzed one another and that Ruth made some gestures, existing footage leaves it unclear whether he pointed at the dugout or the outfield, and the story was written two days later.
- Chicago's Wrigley Field stood in for Yankee Stadium during filming, with temporary walls placed over the ivy-covered brick for the New York scenes.
- The film's portrayal of Ruth as an overweight child is incorrect: he was quite lean, even skinny in his youth, and did not begin to put on weight until the 1920s.
