Orioles Card "O" the Day

An intersection of two of my passions: baseball cards and the Baltimore Orioles. Updated daily?

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Babe Ruth, 2010 Promotional Card

Happy 116th birthday to George Herman "Babe" Ruth! I bet you didn't know that I had a card of Babe Ruth with the Orioles. This is a reproduction of a card made in 1914 during that brief window of time in which the future home run king played for Jack Dunn's Baltimore club in the International League. The Red Sox acquired him in midseason. These replicas were handed out last August at the National Sports Collector's Convention to promote the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum and the Sports Legends Museum, both of which are within walking distance of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. It's a great glimpse at a 19-year-old pitcher who would become the biggest star the sport ever saw by the end of the decade.

Are you curious about the Babe's performance as an Oriole? Unfortunately, he joined another International League team - the Providence Grays - after the Red Sox signed him, and his I.L. stats are presented on Baseball Reference as cumulative totals. He wasn't quite the otherworldly hitter he would come to be, as he batted .231 with 2 doubles, 8 triples, and 1 home run in 121 at-bats. But he was excellent on the mound, going 22-9 with a 2.39 ERA. You can certainly see why Boston brought him up to the major leagues in July.

4 comments:

SoNSo1 said...

The Babe Ruth museum is a little slice of Yankee and Red Sox in Birdland. The same could be said about Camden Yards. Maybe we've got the curse?

Steve Gierman said...

That has always been one of my favorite Ruth cards.

Kevin said...

SoNSo1 - I don't believe in curses. ;-)

Steve - Even more so than last year's Chipper-Ruth?

Mike said...

I have one of these, from the national sports collectors convention center. Im 10 years old and my dad took me. Something interesting is that i was also doing a book report about babe ruth, the book had a picture of this card and i was like, I HAVE THIS! I also didnt know where the card came from until now. Look it up on the internet, this reproduction specifically. No1 says anything about it.