Babe Ruth: An American Icon

German soldiers of 150 Panzer Brigade with captured American armored car courtesy https://warisboring.com/fighting-in-plain-sight-impostors-on-the-battlefield-d1d8bb0ef12f#.my03dtnq1.

For decades, baseball was as American as apple pie.  The story goes that in the closing months of the Second World War, German soldiers, flying American flags and wearing American uniforms, were impersonating American soldiers in order to infiltrate enemies.  Therefore, American soldiers started asking questions that only other Americans know the answers to.  When Brigadier General Bruce Clarke incorrectly stated that the Chicago Cubs were in the American League, he was held at gunpoint for five hours (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Greif#Commandos).

If anyone represented baseball, it was Babe Ruth.  "The Great Bambino" played professional baseball for 22 years, from 1914 to 1935.  While he started his career with the Boston Red Sox, he spent most of his career playing for the New York Yankees.  Ruth was not afraid to take a risk.  While he was the home run king, he was also the strike out king.  Ruth was not afraid to take a risk; he refused to let anything deter him.  In 1924, after running into a wall during a match against the Washington Senators and being knocked unconscious, he insisted on staying in the game.  On his next time up to bat, suffering a bruised pelvic bone, he hit a double.  Babe Ruth won the World Series three times with the Red Sox and four times with the Yankees.

In 1936, Ruth was one of the first five baseball players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Babe Ruth has only grown in popularity since his death in 1948.  According to one collector, his earliest baseball card now rivals the famous Honus T. Wagner card in value (http://www.deanscards.com/Babe-Ruth-Baseball-Cards).

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Jimmie Foxx Basis for A League of Their Own Character

"He has muscles in his hair." (Lefty Gomez, New York Yankees pitcher)

Jimmie Foxx, who played professional baseball for 20 seasons, was only the second person in history to score 500 home runs, after Babe Ruth.  Foxx was the inspiration for Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own.

Born and raised in Maryland, Foxx was signed by the Athletics in 1925 at the tender age of 17.  Four years later, Foxx had a breakthrough year batting .354 and scoring 33 home runs, meriting him a spot on the cover of Time.  

By 1933, Foxx earned the Triple Crown of Baseball, with a batting average of .356 and 48 home runs.  Lefty Gomez, a New York Yankees pitcher, explained:  "He has muscles in his hair."  It was Gomez who pitched a ball to Foxx which the latter hit into the third deck of Yankee Stadium, a rare feat.

The Great Depression forced the Athletics owner to sell Foxx's contract to the Boston Red Sox.  Foxx played in Boston for six years in which he earned 50 home runs one season, a feat not duplicated until 2006.

Foxx's skills diminished after 1941, possibly the result of drinking.  He finished his career with the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies.  Often referred to as the "left handed Babe Ruth", Foxx ended his career as a pitcher.  He played with such greats as Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg.  

Foxx passed away in 1967 but his jersey hangs in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  He will also be remembered as the character Jimmy Dugan, played by Tom Hanks, in the 1992 movie A League of Their Own.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmie_Foxx#/media/File:FoxxRuthGehrigCochrane.jpg