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Babe Ruth’s famously cherubic face was always an unlikely candidate for worldwide notoriety.

The few public figures capable of competing with Ruth’s celebrity during his lifetime were mostly world leaders – and not one looked anything like the unrefined New York Yankees star. Whereas statesman like King George V could project stern resolve with their portraits, which graced everything from currency to stamps to military medals, Ruth’s chubby cheeks and broad nose were more fittingly used to sell candy and tobacco.

But that’s not to say that Ruth was an eyesore or somehow unworthy of photographers’ attention. As author Sam Chase reveals in his new pictorial book, ‘The Great Bambino: Babe Ruth’s Life in Pictures,’ baseball’s most celebrated slugger was a photographer’s dream, who embraced the spotlight and captivated the country with his warmth, vulnerability, and his irrepressible humanity. 

‘He’s incredibly photogenic,’ Chase told DailyMail.com of Ruth, who was easily among the most photographed Americans from his 1914 rookie season until his death in 1948. ‘He looked for the camera and [photographers] looked for him. It was an extremely productive, symbiotic relationship.’

Although not classically handsome, like his dimpled teammate and fellow Hall of Famer, Lou Gehrig, Ruth’s facial features were so distinctive that he’s even recognizable as a young boy growing up on the streets of Baltimore.

‘I think he had a very memorable face,’ Chase continued. ‘No one looks like Babe Ruth — this big, round, jovial face and a really beautiful smile.

‘He was a happy guy a lot of the time, and that translates… [And then there are] photos where he’s sad or struck out or various darker moments from his career kind where he has that hound dog look to him. He kind of wore his emotions on his sleeve.’

Babe Ruth wearing the uniform of the Boston Red Sox, the team he played with from 1915 until he joined the Yankees in 1920

(Left) Three year old George Herman Ruth poses for a portrait in Baltimore in 1898 long before he was known as ‘The Babe.’ (Right) Ruth addresses the crowd at Yankee Stadium, ‘The House That Ruth Built,’ during his farewell in 1948. He would die two months later from throat cancer 

Although not classically handsome, like his dimpled teammate and fellow Hall of Famer, Lou Gehrig (left), Ruth’s facial features were so distinctive that he’s even recognizable as a young boy growing up on the streets of Baltimore

Ruth (right) was said to be the best player at every position at his reform school. Here is playing catcher in 1912

Babe Ruth, the cowboy, is pictured alongside teammate Lou Gehrig as the two launch a barnstorming tour in Brooklyn  

Nicknamed ‘The Bambino’ and ‘The Sultan of Swat,’ George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth wasn’t baseball’s first icon. Among others, Detroit’s Ty Cobb and Pittsburgh’s Honus Wagner had captured the country’s imagination long before Ruth ever played a Major League game.

Upon his arrival with the Boston Red Sox in 1914, Ruth became baseball’s most irrepressible force, both as a hitter and a pitcher. Ruth actually led the American League in earned-run average in 1916 and set a record by pitching 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series – a mark that stood until 1961.

His pitching career ended when he was famously sold to the Yankees before the 1920 season, but he remained a revolutionary force in the batter’s box, where he rewrote the record books.

Before Ruth, Chicago White Stockings infielder Ned Williamson’s 1884 mark of 27 home runs in a single season had stood for 35 years. But in 1919, Ruth topped it with 29. Then, after moving to New York, he had 54 in 1920 and 59 in 1921 before setting a record with 60 home runs in 1927 that stood for 34 years.

Ruth, whose all-time record of 714 career home lasted until 1974, is pictured swinging throughout Chase’s book, noticeably putting all of his considerable weight into each hack — a style that was atypical for hitters of that era but is now more common

Ruth, whose all-time record of 714 career home lasted until 1974, is pictured swinging throughout Chase’s book, noticeably putting all of his considerable weight into each hack — a style that was atypical for hitters of that era but is now more common.

‘He totally changed the way people thought about hitting,’ Chase said. ‘[He was] breaking records and reshaping the conversation around the game.’

He was also forever changing pop culture, unapologetically reinventing American celebrity in his own image.

‘Prior to 1914, there’s only so much opportunity to be a celebrity,’ said Chase. ‘I think our current understanding of celebrity was basically invented in the 1910s and 1920s when Ruth was emerging. He was almost the prototype in that sense.’

From New York’s Yankee Stadium, the ‘House that Ruth Built,’ to barnstorming tours in the American west and Japan, Ruth was often pictured smiling amid a mob of admirers from around the world.

Chase included one photo of Ruth standing in front of a crowd of African-American fans, who had come to see him play against a black team on one barnstorming tour – something that would have been frowned upon in the segregated Major Leagues.

‘Just legitimizing black ballplayers by even playing against them was a big thing,’ Chase said. ‘Treating them with respect and socializing with them, treating it like a normal baseball game in the context of the time, that’s significant.’ 

Predating American paparazzi, photographers of the era appeared to save Ruth from too much scandal, so he isn’t pictured carousing at any speakeasies. However, his first daughter Dorothy was often photographed, as was his first wife, Helen, who was not the girl’s biological mother, but rather, adopted her after Ruth’s mistress Juanita Jennings gave birth to her in 1921 

Babe Ruth, New York Yankees outfielder, poses with African American fans somewhere in the southeast during the trip north from spring training before the start of the 1925 season

Chase’s book contains many of his most famous pictures, like photographer Nat Fein’s Pulitzer Price-winning shot from Ruth’s farewell at Yankee Stadium in 1948 (pictured). Unlike every other Ruth picture, his face isn’t visible, but rather the hunched 53-year-old is seen from behind, wearing his famed No. 3 pinstriped jersey and leaning on a bat for support. ‘His body language kind of tells a story there,’ Chase said. ‘He’s using a baseball bat as a cane in that photograph. It’s almost too on the nose in some ways.’ Ruth would die from throat cancer two months later

Ruth, during his Boston Red Sox days, smokes a pipe as he plays a piano alongside his first wife, Helen Ruth

Amplifying Ruth’s notoriety was his move to New York, where he’d win four World Series titles after capturing three with the Red Sox in the previous decade.

The legend is that Red Sox owner Harry Frazee, a theater producer, sold Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 season to finance a production of ‘My Lady Friends.’ But whatever the case, the move served as a starter’s pistol for the roaring 1920s, with Ruth acting as the grand marshal ushering in a new, debaucherous era.

Babe Ruth, pitcher for the Providence Grays minor league team, poses for a team photograph in 1914

Predating American paparazzi, photographers of the era appeared to save Ruth from too much scandal, so he isn’t pictured carousing at any speakeasies.

However, his first daughter Dorothy was often photographed, as was his first wife, Helen, who was not the girl’s biological mother, but rather, adopted her after Ruth’s mistress Juanita Jennings gave birth to her in 1921.

The family Ruth was born into was equally dysfunctional, so don’t expect any heartwarming childhood photos.

Of his parents’ eight children, only Ruth and his younger sister survived infancy. Although details about his family life are scant, it’s generally believed that Ruth felt his parents blamed him for their struggles, and their oldest child was quoted later in life as saying ‘I think my mother hated me.’

It didn’t help that Ruth was notoriously delinquent, even by age 7, chewing tobacco, drinking whiskey and throwing stones at police, all while refusing to attend school.

‘He just wouldn’t go,’ Ruth’s sister, Mamie Ruth Moberly, told documentary film maker Ken Burns. ‘And my father would whip him. My mother would say ”George, if you don’t stop that, you’re gonna hurt that boy,” and he’d keep on whipping him. But it didn’t do any good in the long run.’

Ruth was soon sent to St. Mary’s Industrial School, a reformatory, in 1905 and spent much of the next decade there after being declared ‘incorrigible.’

And although he would return home from time to time, Ruth’s family rarely visited.

‘I guess I’m just too big and ugly for anyone to come and see me,’ he said to another inmate at the reformatory, according to Burns’s 1994 PBS documentary, ‘Baseball.’

The St. Mary’s Industrial School team poses for a portrait sometime around 1911. Babe Ruth is in the group, top row, far left

Babe Ruth is seen sitting in the stands at Yankee Stadium during Babe Ruth Day alongside his second wife, Claire in 1948

In his later years, Ruth was often seen surrounded by his wife and daughters. At the piano is daughter Julia Ruth (later Julia Flanders and Julia Stevens), and standing are daughter Dorothy (later Dorothy Sullivan and Dorothy Pirone, 1921 – 1989) and wife Claire Ruth (1987 – 1976)

Babe Ruth, of the ‘Bustin’ Babes,’ top row third from right, poses with promoter Christy Walsh, to his left, and Lou Gehrig, in the white uniform in a publicity photo for the barnstorming tour that begins after the close of the 1927 season

Ruth shakes hands with the US’s 29th president, Warren Harding. After the handshake Ruth hit a home run to beat Washington

The International League team representing Baltimore poses in their ballpark in 1914. Babe Ruth is fifth from left on the team

Chase’s book includes photographs of Ruth’s childhood home, where he grew up speaking German with his first-generation Prussian-American parents, as well as the bar his father opened when Babe was just 6.

Ruth’s relationship with his family is somewhat opaque, but what is clear is that he discovered baseball at St. Mary’s. It was there that he met a priest named Brother Matthias, who was supposed to be the school disciplinarian, but really served as the boys’ baseball godfather and Ruth’s first mentor, according to Chase.

Babe Ruth poses with a cigar – a vice that likely contributed to his premature death at age 53 in 1948

In fact, it was Matthias’s swing that Ruth emulated, helping him to become the region’s most celebrated teenage prospect. 

‘I think I was born as a hitter the first day I ever saw him hit a baseball,’ Ruth said of Matthias. (Later Ruth adopted the swing of legendary White Sox and Cleveland Indians slugger, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson)

Even pictured as a young catcher in several of the black-and-white photographs, Ruth’s round face is unmistakable, as it would be throughout the rest of his life.

Truthfully, the changes to his appearance over the years mostly occurred below the neck, where his years of overeating, drinking, and smoking clearly took their toll.

Ruth briefly committed himself to boxing in the off-season in 1926, as seen in one of the book’s photographs, but for the most part, his life away from baseball was spent indulging every one of his impulses.

‘I think it’s a relatable experience to hit 25 and suddenly, eating and drinking hits a little different,’ Chase said of Ruth’s rapid weight gain, which seemed to accelerate after he was sold to the Yankees. ‘I wonder if some part of that might’ve been just metabolism.

‘Also I wonder if the excess was dialed up as he got to New York. He came up to the bigs in 1914, in Boston and between 1914 and the early twenties, that’s a different world. That’s on the other side of the war and that’s the roaring twenties and he’s in the Big Apple with a lot of money for the time.

‘He just went to one hundred every night with whatever he was eating and drinking.’

Babe Ruth drives New York Yankee manager Miller Huggins on a tour of Riverside Drive in Manhattan in 1923

Chase’s book contains many of his most famous pictures, like photographer Nat Fein’s Pulitzer Price-winning shot from Ruth’s farewell at Yankee Stadium in 1948.

Unlike every other Ruth picture, his face isn’t visible, but rather the hunched 53-year-old is seen from behind, wearing his famed No. 3 pinstriped jersey and leaning on a bat for support.

‘His body language kind of tells a story there,’ Chase said. ‘He’s using a baseball bat as a cane in that photograph. It’s almost too on the nose in some ways.’

Ruth would die from throat cancer two months later.

The Barnstorming Babe Cleaning Up. Omaha, Nebraska: Making one-night stands on the western circuit is no cinch, with little time to attend to the niceties of comfortable living. Witness the one and only Babe Ruth who arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, on October 15, just in time to have a barber visit his room, wield the trusty razor, and so have the Bambino ready to play with the champion woodmen of the world team at Omaha. The ‘Wows’ of Omaha are one of the strongest teams in the middle west, and the Babe’s presence drew a great crowd to the game

Perhaps the book’s most striking photo, and easily the silliest, pictures Ruth dressed as a cowboy, straddling the front end of a car that’s been adorned with bullhorns.

Perched atop a saddle, Ruth is seen unfurling a lasso while being flanked by Gehrig, who is also dressed in a cowboy hat and chaps. Nearly every subject in the frame is either grinning or laughing, while Ruth, instead, appears solemnly ignorant to his own comedy. 

The photograph illustrates two important distinctions about Ruth. 

First, it contrasts him perfectly with Gehrig, the burly Ivy Leaguer who famously died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1941.

Unlike Ruth, with whom he had an up-and-down relationship, Gehrig did not grow up starved for attention, and instead remained close with his disciplinarian mother well into adulthood.

So whereas Ruth often acted out in front of the cameras, Gehrig was always at ease in his teammate’s shadow. 

‘Babe was the one who got the spotlight because he wanted it and he liked it and Gehrig could step back a little bit because he wasn’t as into that type of attention,’ Chase said.

The other point is that Ruth, in his own way, is seen ridiculing the heroes of America’s past – the men whom he replaced in the hearts and minds of children.

‘He’s dressed up specifically like a cowboy – that American icon of masculinity in westerns that played a big role in shaping American masculinity and mythology,’ Chase said. ‘That speaks to a lot of elements about Babe, for me.’

To Chase, and many of Ruth devotees, it’s that irreverence that made him so lovable.

Particularly now, with athletes sanitized by leagues and sponsors for public consumption, Ruth stands out as an American original. Yes, he was the best player in the world, but by not treating baseball, or anything else, like a life-and-death matter, he made himself approachable to fans around the world.

‘That’s where the joy comes from,’ Chase said. ‘Obviously sports are still super fun now, and the athleticism is incredibly striking, but there’s kind of a seriousness to it that maybe was really absent back then.

‘This guy was the superstar of superstars,’ Chase concluded, ‘and he’s out there kind of being a weirdo, in the best way.’

Perhaps the book’s most striking photo, and easily the silliest, pictures Ruth dressed as a cowboy, straddling the front end of a car that’s been adorned with bullhorns (The book uses a similar picture from this event, but not this exact photo). Perched atop a saddle, Ruth is seen unfurling a lasso while being flanked by Gehrig, who is also dressed in a cowboy hat and chaps. Every subject in the frame is either grinning or laughing, while Ruth, instead, appears solemnly ignorant to his own comedy 

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk

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