TAMPA, Florida. – 95 years ago this week, Babe Ruth became the first MLB player ever to hit 500 home runs, but perhaps Babe’s longest hit came ten years earlier.
In 1919, Ruth hit the ball 610 feet during spring training in Tampa, near the current site of the University of Tampa. But was that really Babe’s long shot?
“That’s a good question and it depends on who you ask. We, of course, claim that he found it here,” said Rui Farias, executive director of the St. Petersburg History Museum.
“He hit a home run that left the old Waterfront Park and broke the window of the old West Coast Inn, where the St. Pete Hilton is now. That was more than 600 feet from home plate,” Farias said.
Ruth was also involved in the real estate boom of the 1920s.
“If you look for a 1920s house in St. Petersburg, the realtor will tell you that either Al Capone or Babe Ruth lived here,” laughed Farias.
READ: Babe Ruth’s home run ball is back at UT after 102 years
Legend has it that Babe owned an apartment in Old Northeast St. Pete. Lou Gehrig owned an apartment across the street. They would play baseball on their balconies.
The Tampa site may have more documentation. When the Babe hit a home run here in 1919, he was wearing a Red Sox jersey, but the Sox sold him to the Yankees for $125,000.
Boston did not win the World Series for 86 years, a defeat that was also known as the “Curse of the Bambino.”
The charm of the Bambino was clearly felt in both Tampa and St. Pete.
“When the Yankees arrived for spring training in 1925 and Babe Ruth got off the train, it was like the Beatles arriving at JFK Airport in 1964,” Farias said.
It seems that Babe was bigger than the Beatles – not Penny Lane, but big money. Babe signed a big contract at the Princess Martha Hotel in St. Pete for $80,000 a year.
“He became the highest-paid professional athlete in the world at that time,” Farias said.
That’s not a lot of money for a well-known athlete by today’s standards, but his long home runs here certainly hold up no matter which side you’re on in the long-running Tampa Bay Area controversy over the Babe’s longest home run.
STAY CONNECTED WITH FOX 13 TAMPA BAY:
