Photo via Wikipedia

Babe Ruth’s Final Game as a Pitcher Was a Complete-Game Win Against the Boston Red Sox in 1933

Even after he became a legendary slugger, the Bambino still occasionally took a turn on the mound

Andrew Martin
Published in
3 min readJul 29, 2020

--

Before becoming synonymous with slugging baseballs, the legendary Babe Ruth was an outstanding pitcher, who was on track for a Hall of Fame career from the mound before destiny came calling with the lumber. The Bambino became a full-time hitter following the 1919 season, when he hit a then record 29 home runs and was then traded by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees.

Ruth went on to hit hundreds of home runs (714 to be exact) and win seven World Series titles. However, he never fully gave up pitching, and occasionally toed the rubber every now and then, with his final official appearance on the mound coming in 1933 when he pitched a complete game win at the age of 38 on the last day of the regular season.

In 1933 the Yankees were in an unfamiliar place for them — not in first. The Washington Senators ended up winning 99 games that year and took the division by seven games over New York. Thus, on October first of that year, when the Yankees hosted the Red Sox for their final regular season game, the team had nothing significant at stake by letting Ruth take up his old…

--

--

Andrew Martin
SportsRaid

Dabbler in history, investing & writing. Master’s degree in baseball history. Passionate about history, diversity, culture, sports, film and investing .