12 things you probably don’t know about Babe Ruth

The Baseball Hall of Fame is honoring Babe Ruth during the 2014 season with a special exhibit. Here are some interesting facts about the 'Sultan of Swat.'

4. Displaying his versatility

In 1915, his first full season in the majors, Ruth’s prowess as both pitcher and hitter began to shine. Since he mostly pitched, he appeared in only 42 games, but while compiling an 18-8 record he also managed to bat .315 and hit four home runs and 20 doubles. Several years later, the Red Sox decided Ruth’s bat was too valuable to not use more often, so they began inserting him in the lineup even when he wasn’t pitching. His first appearance as a nonpitcher or pinch hitter occurred on May 6, 1918, when he played first base and batted sixth against the Yankees. Babe hit a home run, prompting the Yankee owner to inquire about a possible trade for Ruth. 

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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