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.'

12. More fizzle than sizzle at the end

Ruth wasn’t able to put any spectacular finishing touches on his career. In his last game as a Yankee on Sept. 30, 1934, he went 0-for-4 against the Senators in Washington with his wife, Claire, and daughter, Dorothy, in attendance. After flying out to centerfield in his final at-bat, Ruth leaves the field crying. In his very last major-league at bat in 1935 as a member of the Boston Braves he grounded out against the Phillies. In 1938, Ruth was made a coach by the Brooklyn Dodgers, but that was a short-lived arrangement probably meant to create some buzz as much as anything. Reportedly, Ruth took some batting practice swings and hit a few out of the park. 

12 of 12

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.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.