With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Film Shows Babe Ruth, at Leisure and Up Close

HENDERSON, Nev. — Tom Stevens sat at a Starbucks in this Las Vegas suburb and watched his grandfather, Babe Ruth, cavort across the computer screen.

“I haven’t seen anything like that,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that there isn’t other stuff out there, but I haven’t seen it.”

There are so few moving images of Babe Ruth that even Major League Baseball’s monstrous archive contains less than an hour’s worth. The bulk of Ruth footage may, in fact, still be buried in basements or stashed in attics.

One recent discovery, from a cellar in Illinois, might be unlike any other, showing Ruth in his prime and shot from close range, sitting atop a pony while wearing a child’s cowboy hat and muttering into a home movie camera, as a boyish Lou Gehrig, who never had children and was known for his dignified demeanor, held children and framed his smile with big dimples....
Read entire article at NYT