Whoever said “keep your words soft and sweet, in case you have to eat ‘em later”, Babe Ruth never heard them. I wrote earlier this week about his breakout 1920 season, which saw him club 54 home runs after predicting he’d top 50 before the campaign began. Baseball just doesn’t breed personalities like that — the best players in the game today, Mike Trout or Aaron Judge, or even flashier stars like Francisco Lindor or Mookie Betts wouldn’t predict all-time records for themselves in spring training.
But that was really just the start of Ruth’s outsized personality.