They locked him up at age 7. He walked out 12 years later and changed baseball forever.
Baltimore, 1902. A small boy was dropped off at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys—part orphanage, part reformatory, part last chance for “incorrigible” children.
His name was George Herman Ruth Jr. His parents couldn’t control him. He skipped school, ran wild in the streets, got into constant trouble. His mother was dying. His father ran a saloon and had no time for a problem child.
So they signed him over to the Catholic brothers who ran St. Mary’s. For the next 12 years, that cold institution would be the only home he knew.
Most kids sent there were forgotten. Became factory workers, if they were lucky. Fell through society’s cracks.
But George Ruth had something burning inside him that no institution could contain.
And he met someone who saw it.
Brother Matthias Boutlier was a giant of a man—6’6″, intimidating to the boys. But he had a gift for seeing potential where others saw problems. And when he watched young George play baseball in the schoolyard, he saw something extraordinary.
Natural left-handed pitching motion. Perfect timing at the plate. Fearless confidence.
Brother Matthias didn’t just encourage the boy—he mentored him obsessively. Hour after hour, teaching him to control his pitching, to read the game, to channel all that wild energy into something magnificent.
By his teenage years, George Ruth was playing up to 200 games a year at St. Mary’s—pitcher, catcher, outfield, any position needed. He wasn’t just good. He was dominating kids, then teenagers, then young men years older than him.
Local teams started hearing about the kid from St. Mary’s who threw heat like a grown man and hit balls over buildings.
In February 1914, Baltimore Orioles owner Jack Dunn came to watch him play. Ruth was 19—still technically a ward of St. Mary’s.
Dunn saw five minutes and knew.
He signed Ruth to a professional contract on the spot. Because Ruth was still a minor under the guardianship of St. Mary’s, Dunn actually became his legal guardian to make the deal official.
When Ruth showed up at spring training, the veteran players saw this baby-faced kid tagging along with the owner and started calling him “Dunn’s babe.”
The nickname stuck. George Herman Ruth Jr. became “Babe Ruth.”
And Babe could play.
As a pitcher, his fastball was electric. As a hitter, he crushed balls with power nobody had seen before. The Orioles were a minor league team, but Ruth was clearly destined for more.
By July 1914—just five months after leaving St. Mary’s—financial troubles forced the Orioles to sell their best players. The Boston Red Sox bought Babe Ruth’s contract.
He made his major league debut at age 19.
And over the next six years with Boston, he became the best left-handed pitcher in baseball—winning 89 games, posting a microscopic ERA, dominating World Series games.
But here’s what makes Ruth’s story transcendent: he was too good at hitting to just pitch.
In 1919, the Red Sox started playing him in the outfield on days he didn’t pitch, just so his bat could be in the lineup. He hit 29 home runs that year—shattering the previous record of 27.
Then came the trade that changed everything. In 1920, Boston sold Ruth to the New York Yankees in what would become the most notorious transaction in sports history—”The Curse of the Bambino.”
And Ruth exploded.
In 1920, his first year with New York, he hit 54 home runs. The entire rest of the American League combined didn’t hit that many. He didn’t just break the record—he obliterated the concept of what was possible.
In 1921: 59 home runs.
In 1927: 60 home runs—a record that stood for 34 years.
He transformed baseball from a strategy game of bunts and stolen bases into a power game of towering home runs and dramatic moments. Fans who’d never cared about baseball packed stadiums to watch him swing.
They built Yankee Stadium specifically to showcase Babe Ruth. They called it “The House That Ruth Built.”
The boy who’d been thrown away at age 7 became the most famous athlete in America. Maybe the world.
He earned more than the President. He partied like a king. He signed autographs for hours. He visited sick children in hospitals—never forgetting what it felt like to be forgotten.
His career numbers are almost incomprehensible: 714 home runs (a record for 39 years), .690 slugging percentage (still second all-time), 2,873 hits, and a pitching record good enough for the Hall of Fame even without his hitting.
But here’s what the statistics can’t capture: Babe Ruth saved baseball.
After the 1919 Black Sox gambling scandal nearly destroyed the sport’s credibility, Ruth’s explosive, joyful, larger-than-life presence gave fans a reason to believe again. He made baseball fun. Exciting. Dramatic.
He took America’s pastime and turned it into America’s obsession.
The incorrigible 7-year-old who was locked away because nobody knew what to do with him became the man who changed sports forever.
Brother Matthias saw a troubled kid with potential and bet everything on him.
That bet paid off in ways nobody could have imagined.
From St. Mary’s Industrial School to Yankee Stadium. From “incorrigible” to “irreplaceable.” From George Herman Ruth Jr. to simply “The Babe”—a name so iconic it needs no last name.
They locked him up to fix him.
He walked out and became a legend.
There will never be another Babe Ruth.
