BW - EP138—007: Baseball Memories From Radio History—The Death Of Babe Ruth

Breaking Walls: The Podcast on the History of American Network Radio Broadcasting

In 1946, Babe Ruth, always a heavy smoker, began to experience severe pain over his left eye and difficulty swallowing. Tests were bleak. Ruth had an inoperable malignant tumor at the base of his skull. He was one of the first cancer patients to receive both drugs and radiation treatment simultaneously. He lost eighty pounds and was discharged from the hospital in February of 1947. Baseball commissioner Happy Chandler proclaimed April 27th, 1947 Babe Ruth Day around the major leagues. At Yankee Stadium a number of teammates and others spoke in honor of Ruth, who briefly addressed the crowd of almost sixty-thousand. By then, his voice was barely more than a soft whisper. Around this time, developments in chemotherapy offered some hope. Doctors treated Ruth with a folic acid derivative. He showed dramatic improvement. During the summer of 1947 he was able to travel around the country doing promotional work for the Ford Motor Company on American Legion Baseball. On August 12th he appeared on Red Barber’s radio show. The improvement was temporary. By late 1947 he was unable to help write his autobiography. In and out of the hospital in Manhattan, Ruth traveled to and from Florida that winter. The next June 5th, 1948, a "gaunt and hollowed out" Babe visited Yale University to donate a manuscript of his autobiography to its library. There he met Yale’s baseball captain, future president George H. W. Bush. Eight days later he visited Yankee Stadium for the final time. Ruth used a bat as a cane. Nat Fein’s photo of Ruth taken from behind, standing near home plate won the Pulitzer Prize and is one of the most famous Baseball photos in history, Ruth made one final trip on behalf of American Legion Baseball, then entered Memorial Hospital. George Herman “Babe” Ruth died on August 16th, 1948, at 8:01 p.m. He was just fifty-three. His open casket was placed on display in the rotunda of Yankee Stadium. In two days more than seventy-seven thousand people paid tribute. His Requiem Mass was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral; a crowd estimated at seventy-five thousand waited outside. Babe Ruth is still widely considered the greatest baseball player of all-time.