Existing comment:
Babe Ruth
In 1920, Babe Ruth (1895–1948) and the Yankees were accompanied to their games by a unique group of musicians -- a fifty-piece school band that performed before each game. One of their standard musical offerings was titled, "Batterin' Babe, Look at Him Now." After the performance, the Babe would walk out onto the field, spell the applause, and make a plea for donations for St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, an orphanage and reform school run by the Catholic Church that had been partially destroyed by fire in 1919. For most of his youth, it had been Ruth's school and home. He left St. Mary's at the age of nineteen after signing a professional baseball contract to play minor league baseball with the Baltimore Orioles, soon being traded to the Boston Red Sox. During the 1920 season, Babe donated one-fifth of his annual salary to the school. |