Babe Ruth

Beginning his career as a stellar left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, Ruth achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. He established many MLB batting records, including career home runs, slugging percentage, runs batted in, bases on balls, and on-base plus slugging, some of which have been broken. Ruth was one of the first five inductees into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.

At age seven, Ruth was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory where he learned life lessons and baseball skills from Brother Matthias Boutlier, the school's disciplinarian and a capable baseball player. In 1914, Ruth was signed to play minor-league baseball for the Baltimore Orioles. Soon sold to the Red Sox, by 1916 he had built a reputation as an outstanding pitcher who sometimes hit long home runs, the latter a feat unusual in the pre-1920 dead-ball era. Although Ruth twice won 20 games as a pitcher and was a member of three World Series championship teams with Boston, he wanted to play every day and was consequently allowed to convert to an outfielder. He responded by breaking the MLB single-season home run record in 1919.