Babe Ruth Effect: How Babe

Babe Ruth effect: How Babe Ruth transformed baseball in other countries outside U.S.

A large number of people have reached world recognition because of their exceptional talent at the sports that they had been playing. During the 1920s, the U.S. had been esteemed by other countries for the fact that it produced innovatory and useful manufactured goods and also talented people whose name became brads. People in certain countries even went as far as considering the names of such products as being synonymous to the U.S. When concerning baseball and one of the most famous men in the sport, Babe Ruth, most baseball playing countries at the time considered the star to be a symbol of the U.S.

Consequent to the whole world witnessing Babe Ruth's performances, the baseball player had become a super star. He assisted the Red Sox in winning two World Series tournaments and then, in 1919, he would join the New York Yankees, where he increased the team's reputation. While the Yankees had been relatively anonymous in American baseball before Babe Ruth joined the team, matters quickly changed and won two pennants and a World Series, in 1921, 1922, and in 1923 respectively.

At the same time as Babe Ruth had been storming the U.S. with the records he set in baseball, other countries became fond of this sport, too, looking up to the American superstar. Americans had introduced the game to Japan, influencing the Japanese in showing more and more interest in it. Some people had even expressed their theories relating to how this pastime would serve as a mediator between Japan and the U.S.

The sport's popularity in Japan had also increased because of U.S. teams coming to the country to play against their Japanese counterparts. Babe Ruth had joined his country's team in 1934, and in spite of the fact that he was older, he managed to display an outstanding performance in Japan. The superstar had immediately become legendary among the Japanese as he hit 13 home runs, and provided his team with significant assistance as it won seventeen games out of a total of eighteen. "Beibu Rusu"s (this is the way the Japanese public referred to him) historic trip in Japan had had a profound effect on the people in this country. Most probably as a result of the Japanese seeing the American player, the first Japanese professional league had been formed in 1936.

In spite of the fact that the sport had not become wide spread across Japan until the second half of the twentieth century, the Japanese had also made good use of its most important players during Ruth's stay in Japan. "In one game during Ruth's tour, the great Japanese pitcher Eiji Sawamura, still just a teenager, consecutively struck out Charley Gehringer of the Detroit Tigers, Ruth, Lou Gehrig of the Yankees, and Jimmy Fox of the Philadelphia Athletics" (Edward J. Rielly, pp. 146). The Japanese world of baseball had been deeply influenced by Babe Ruth and by his visit to this country.

Even though the game had only counted a few decades since its emergence, a great number of countries have adopted it as their pastime. In spite of the fact that in the 1920s the baseball team in the Dominican Republic has had the tendency to disregard the New York Yankees because they belonged to the U.S., the American baseball is highly esteemed among people in the Dominican Republic.

The New York Yankees is more than just a baseball team for people in the D.R., as people go as far as idolatrizing the team and its players. "The names of Babe Ruth, Tony Lazzeri, Lou Gehrig, and their teammates are venerated here" (Rob Ruck, pp. 28). D.R. citizens were known to be less enthusiastic about the U.S. than they are of the football teams there. While they regarded their western neighbor as a wealthy actor motivated by imperialist concepts, the D.R. had been thankful for the fact that the U.S. had been responsible for the existence of baseball.

Babe Ruth had virtually changed the game of baseball, and while the world did not seem to be especially interested in it until 1920, matters had changed notably consequent to that. Latin America had gotten involved in the game, and in spite of the fact that most countries there could not immediately rival in performance their Northern counterparts, their passion for it certainly competed with that of the U.S.

By comparison, the Cubans had been unimpressed with the evolution of baseball in the U.S., and with the evolution of Babe Ruth altogether. This had mainly been because the baseball fields in Cuba had been larger than the ones in the U.S. Also, while Babe Ruth's trip to Japan had had a strong influence on people over there, the American superstar's journey in Cuba had been different.

Shortly after the Babe joined the Yankees, the American team went to Cuba to play against the Cuban team. Cristobal Torriente had been the local baseball superstar at the time and the Cubans did not hesitate to prove that they, too, had good baseball players. The game went terrible for Ruth, with Torriente having three home runs while the American team had none. Surprisingly, while Babe Ruth had been paid $2,000 for every game that he played in Cuba, Torriente had only received 200 pesos with the help of his teammates who passed through the spectators with their caps held out. Cubans then concluded that Ruth's fame had been mainly owed to the fact that the baseball fields in the U.S. had been smaller than the ones in Cuba. Another rumor relating to Ruth's disappointing performance during his stay in Cuba had been that the pitchers intentionally threw bad balls, being afraid that the powerful American would disgrace them.

Babe Ruth had reached an almost supernatural statute at the time when he played in Cuba. The Cubans had not only thought of bringing him to their country in order to promote the game, they also did so thinking of the financial benefits that would arise as a result of his coming into the country. Not only did the Cubans pay a salary of $2,000 / per game to Ruth, but the baseball player was well taken care of during his stay in the country. The 1920's had been a period when prohibition had been flourishing in the U.S., making it more difficult for someone to satisfy their vices. Cuba, in contrast, had been a place where alcohol and gambling had been common, thus keeping Ruth happy the whole time he spent there.