Winter Discovery Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/13/2013
This incredible photo shows the Saint Mary industrial High school baseball team and is dated on back 1914.the size is 6”x4.75” and in good condition other than some identification on a couple players and the way it was trimmed. Although it is dated in 1914 Ruth is not in this team photo. There are very few surviving photos from this school and team. This photo does not have Ruth in it because it was probably taken after he left the school and was signed the same year to Baltimore. Some of the same players in the only known photo showing Ruth and Saint Mary’s team do look to be in this photo. Anything related to this school and baseball from these years is incredibly scarce and almost unobtainable...
The story of Ruth going to the school starts with his father. Because they simply were unable to handle their oldest son, in 1902, Ruth's father, mother, and a Justice of the Peace filed the form that legally labeled the seven-year-old George Ruth Jr. "incorrigible and vicious...beyond the control" of his parents. He was committed to the St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys and legally removed from his parents' care, becoming a ward of the Bavarian Brothers who operated the school. George Ruth Jr. would spend most of his next 12 years inside of St. Mary's. When he left, it would be because he had signed a professional baseball contract.
Jack Dunn, owner of the Baltimore Orioles, to come watch George Jr. play in February 1914 after watching him for less than an hour. Upon seeing George Jr. for the first time, the Orioles Players referred to George Jr.to as “Jack’s newest babe”, and thus the most famous nickname in American sports history was born.
Rare 1914 Team photo (Babe Ruth's) Saint Mary High School
Click above for larger image.