A baseball bat that looks to be almost 100 years old is being auctioned off soon and is expected to fetch as much as $500,000. How on earth could a bat be worth that much, you might ask. Did it belong to Babe Ruth or something? Well, yes that's what the nice people say. A Massachusetts family found a collection of bats used by the Boston Red Sox in the late 1910's. One of them bore the name of the Great One. This comes at an auspicious time as a new exhibit on the man was just announced that aimed to examine Ruth with a fresh set of eyes.
They legendary Babe Ruth is more than just an icon of his sport. He's more than just an American treasure. Babe Ruth is literally a mythical figure, and as time goes by his story gets bigger and more exaggerated and fact becomes intertwined with fiction in the same way that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison's histories often read.
A relic such as the bat which was recently found in a Massachusetts basement is likely to take on that larger-than-life aura as well (via CBS Boston):
"This awe-inspiring bat has several distinctions that reveal it to be a Babe Ruth 1916-18 bat. The first is Ruth's stamped name. That the bat has been personalized at the factory with a simple 'RUTH' in block letters allows us to date this bat as being made before July, 1918. On the 9th of that month, Babe Ruth signed his first contract with the Kentucky company and every bat subsequently manufactured for him featured a facsimile signature of one style or another on the barrel."
In the age of social media, when LeBron James' every move is scrutinized and manipulated to fit a plethora of by-lines with various agendas, it is important to remember that Babe Ruth also lived in a time when sports reporting was big business. And his myth had begun to be built even as he was playing the game (via MLB.com):
"'Ruth's greatness and aura have transcended time,' Sherman said. 'His feats were so staggering they morphed him into a mythic, Paul Bunyan-type figure. We still talk about him because he always has been the standard for excellence in sports. Even Michael Jordan was known as the Babe Ruth of basketball. No explanation required.'''
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