Baltimore.........Maryland...............where novelist and poet..........Edgar Allen Poe was last seen babbling...................it also has a seemingly endless streets of abandoned houses.............i have been there many times..................my maternal grandfather and i would go there..............b/c a friend of his owned a warehouse............which was big enough to take up like 3 city blocks................the reason we went was to get cheap books..........if a bookstore cannot sell a title and the book sits of the shelves too long..............they sell it back for like pennies or something.........................the warehouse mainly had porn............tons of it......................

Early years

Babe Ruth birthplace in Baltimore, Maryland

George Herman Ruth, Jr., was born at 216 Emory Street in Pigtown, a rough neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. Ruth's parents, George Herman Ruth, Sr., and Katherine Schamberger, were both German American. George Ruth, Sr., had a series of jobs, including lightning rod salesman and streetcar operator, before becoming a counterman in a family-owned combination grocery and saloon on Frederick Street. George Jr. was born in the house of his maternal grandfather, Pius Schamberger, a German immigrant and trade unionist.^[2][3] Only one of young George's seven siblings, his younger sister Mamie, survived infancy.^[4]

Many aspects of Ruth's childhood are undetermined, including even the date of his parents' marriage.^[5] The family moved to 339 South Goodyear Street, not far from the rail yards, when young George was a toddler; by the time he was six, his father had a saloon with an upstairs apartment at 426 West Camden Street. Details about why he was sent, at the age of seven, to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory and orphanage, are similarly scanty. Babe Ruth, as an adult, suggested that not only was he running the streets and rarely attending school, he was drinking beer when his father was not looking. Stories exist that after a violent incident at the saloon, the city authorities decided the environment was unsuitable for a small child. At St. Mary's, which he entered on June 13, 1902, he was recorded as "incorrigible"; he spent much of the next twelve years there.^[6][7][8]

Although St. Mary's inmates received an education, a substantial amount of time was devoted to work, particularly once the boys turned 12. Ruth became a shirtmaker, and was also proficient as a carpenter. He would adjust his own shirt collars, rather than having a tailor do it, even during his well-paid baseball career. The boys, aged 5 to 21, did most work around the facility, from cooking to shoemaking, and renovated St. Mary's in 1912. The food was simple, and the Xaverian Brothers who ran the school insisted on strict discipline; corporal punishment was common. Ruth's nickname there was "Niggerlips", as he had large facial features and was darker than most boys at the all-white reformatory.^[9]

Ruth (top row, center) at St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1912

Ruth was sometimes allowed to rejoin his family, or was placed at St. James's Home, a supervised residence with work in the community, but he was always returned to St. Mary's.^[10][11] He rarely was visited by his family; his mother died when he was 12 and by some accounts, he was permitted to leave St. Mary's only to attend the funeral.^[12] How Ruth came to play baseball there is uncertain: according to one account, his placement at St. Mary's was due in part to repeatedly breaking Baltimore's windows with long hits while playing street ball; by another, he was told to join a team on his first day at St. Mary's by the school's athletic director, Brother Herman, becoming a catcher even though left-handers rarely play that position. During his time there he also played third base and shortstop, again unusual for a left-hander, and was forced to wear mitts and gloves made for right-handers. He was encouraged in his pursuits by the school's Prefect of Discipline, Brother Matthias Boutlier, a native of Nova Scotia. A large man, Brother Matthias was greatly respected by the boys both for his strength and for his fairness. For the rest of his life, Ruth would praise Brother Matthias, and his running and hitting styles closely resembled his teacher's.^[13][14] Ruth stated, "I think I was born as a hitter the first day I ever saw him hit a baseball."^[15] The older man became a mentor and role model to George; biographer Robert W. Creamer commented on the closeness between the two:

Ruth revered Brother Matthias ... which is remarkable, considering that Matthias was in charge of making boys behave and that Ruth was one of the great natural misbehavers of all time. ... George Ruth caught Brother Matthias' attention early, and the calm, considerable attention the big man gave the young hellraiser from the waterfront struck a spark of response in the boy's soul ... [that may have] blunted a few of the more savage teeth in the gross man whom I have heard at least a half-dozen of his baseball contemporaries describe with admiring awe and wonder as "an animal."^[15]