"People still want to know about him.” – Linda Ruth Tosetti narrates stories from the life of Babe Ruth

The 94th MLB All-Star Game ended with the American League winning 5-3 over the National League on July 16 at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

The first two former WooSox to be selected to an All-Star Game, Tanner Houck and Jarren Duran, both appeared in the game, with Duran belting a go-ahead two-run shot in the fifth inning, The home run helped Duran win the Ted Williams All-Star Game MVP––making him the fifth Red Sox to win the award and first since J.D. Drew in 2008.

Filled with history and home to baseball’s all-time greats, the Mid-Summer Classic was first played in 1933 at Comiskey Park in Chicago as part of the 1933 World’s Fair. That year, the American League defeated the National League 4-2 behind Babe Ruth’s two-run blast off Bill Hallahan in the third inning. It was the first of 209 home runs hit in All-Star Game history––and the Great Bambino’s only one.

Leading up to this year’s exhibition was the 110-year anniversary of Ruth’s MLB debut on July 11, 1914. In his first season with the Boston Red Sox, Ruth played just five games with the club, recording two hits in ten at-bats. Twenty-one years and 8,389 at-bats later, Ruth was undoubtedly the greatest baseball talent to ever live.

To celebrate the historic day, Linda Ruth Tosetti, Babe’s granddaughter, was invited to Polar Park to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. More than a century later, Babe Ruth remains a household name.

“People still want to know about him...” Tosetti said. “I’m always doing research and finding different things about him.”

The daughter of Dorothy Ruth Pirone, Tosetti first studied her grandfather when she was in fifth grade and has since been his biggest historical advocate. While Babe’s success on the diamond is well-documented, Tosetti focused on the personal anecdotes from his life to develop a picture of the man Babe was.

One of the stories Tosetti found was from someone who met her grandfather in Spring Training.

“When he was playing in the St. Petersburg league, there was a kid––I met him––who told me he never got to thank my grandfather,” Tosetti said.

During Spring Training, this gentleman––a young man at the time––would watch the Yankees take batting practice and retrieve baseballs that cleared the fence. After Ruth hit, the young man would ask the Yankees’ slugger to sign the baseballs he had gathered. Ruth generously did so, and told him to sell the baseballs, buy more, and Ruth would continue to sign them.

“‘Homers on Order’ he used to call them,” said Tosetti. “He did that all the time.”

Little did Babe know, the small gesture was lifesaving for the young man and his family.

“It turned out that he was putting food on the kid’s table––on the family’s table––during the [Great] Depression,” Tosetti said. “My grandfather tried to have an inkling of what people needed from him, and he fulfilled it. Whether it was a home run, whether it was money, whether it was time––which is quite the gift to have.”

It’s the side of Babe that isn’t always told––the human side that wasn’t larger than life. In the early twentieth century, the American sports landscape was still taking shape, and Ruth was at the forefront.

Major League Baseball was formed a decade before Ruth made his debut. The National Football League was formed a few months after Ruth was sold to the Yankees in 1920. The National Basketball Association wasn’t established until after his death.

In many respects, the Great Bambino was the first athlete to put baseball on a national––and global––stage. In the early 1920s, Ruth toured the nation to play in exhibition games from New York to Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, and Utah. The Sultan of Swat even played Cuban teams––believing anyone who could play, should play.

With each home run he hit, Ruth’s fame grew. But, as Tosetti hopes to show, beneath the 6’2”, 215-pound frame that single-handedly established the live-ball era, was a gentle man.

Tosetti recounted a story of being asked if Ruth had a sensitive personality. Though she didn’t know for certain at the moment, the answer came to her the next day in the form of a stranger from Texas. Tosetti remembers the conversation:

“He said, “My grandmother had my mother on a train when she was a small, small infant. And through the door, here comes Babe, and he stops and says, ‘Hello, mother. May I see your baby?’...So he’s holding it, and he’s being very tender and playing with [the baby].

“She said, ‘Oh, you must have a baby.’ And he says, ‘No, not yet.’ He then thanked her and handed it back.”

In that small conversation, Tosetti felt as if her grandfather was with her. She had always thought of him as being a sensitive man, considering the stories she had heard from her mother and others regarding his generosity to children. But, in that interaction with a stranger from Texas, it became clear that Babe wanted her to know the man that he was.

As Tosetti works to tell her grandfather’s full story, she hopes to emulate the genuine kindness Babe showed towards those he met––especially children.

Before her first pitch, she met a young fan who has a fascination with her grandfather. WooSox manager Chad Tracy’s son, Austin, wanted to meet the baseball legend’s granddaughter––and get her autograph.

The legacy of Babe Ruth continues 110 years later, with the next generation excited to pass along his story.