The best player in baseball history made his Major League debut 100 years ago Friday. On July 11, 1914, a 19-year old Babe Ruth took the mound for the Boston Red Sox for the first time.
He went seven innings as the Red Sox topped the Cleveland Indians 4-3 in what would be the first of Ruth’s 94 big league victories.
The night before, Ruth along with two teammates (Ben Egan and Ernie Shore) from the Baltimore Orioles of the International League boarded a train to take them to Boston and the Major Leagues, reports MLB.com .
The train arrived in the morning and before Ruth went to the ballpark, he stopped in at Landers Coffee Shop, where he was supposedly served by Helen Woodford, who would become his wife after the season ended.
“Only he could have endured an all-night train ride, and I’m sure without any sleep, meet his future bride when she serves him coffee at the first place he goes when he gets off the train at Back Bay Station, and then go to Fenway Park, where (manager) Bill Carrigan has put the ball in his locker, and then go out and win his first major league game,” Dick Johnson, longtime curator of The Sports Museum, said, reports The Boston Herald.