Babe Ruth

But the greatest player could not be held down for long. Over the next seven seasons Ruth averaged 49 home runs, 151 RBIs and a .353 batting average. During that span of time the Yankees won four league pennants and three World Series. The Yankees of these years also boasted future Hall of Famers Lou Gehrig, who joined the team in 1925 and Tony Lazzeri, who became a Yankee in 1926.

In the midst of this run was the magnificent 1927 team, still considered by many as the best baseball team ever assembled. That season Ruth set a single season home run record of 60 that stood for 34 years. He also drove in 164 runs and batted .364 as the team cruised to the pennant and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. During the 1926 World Series and again in 1928, both times against the St. Louis Cardinals, Ruth hit three home runs in a single game.

Throughout these years, at the height of his fame, Ruth's constant womanizing led to an estrangement from his wife, Helen, and their adopted daughter, Dorothy. While Ruth lived in New York his family remained on the farm Ruth had purchased years ago in the Boston suburb of Sudbury, Massachusetts. By 1929 Helen, still married to Ruth, was living in Watertown, Massachusetts with Dr. Edward Kinder. On the night of January 11, 1929, an electrical fire broke out in their home while Kinder was away and Dorothy at boarding school; Helen died of smoke inhalation. Three months later Ruth married Claire Hodgson, a widow with a daughter of her own. Ruth and his new wife each adopted the other's child.

In 1930 Ruth signed a two-year contract that paid him $80,000 per year, more than the president of the United States was paid. When told this he replied in typical Ruthian fashion: "Why not? I had a better year than he had."

The last great Ruthian moment to enter into baseball lore occurred during the 1932 World Series, in which the Yankees swept the Chicago Cubs. Ruth's home run off Charlie Root has gone down as "the called shot," in which he supposedly pointed to a spot in the right field stands moments before he hit the ball there. Most contemporary reports make no mention of the call, yet it has remained ensconced in the Ruth myth.