Babe Ruth: The Great Bambino’s wild lifestyle revealed | Smoking, drinking, and other legendary feats

We will see anyone quite like Babe Ruth in Major League Baseball ever again. The legendary outfielder was one of the sport’s most celebrated figures during the 20 years he spent with the New York Yankees, winning seven MLB World Series, 12-time AL home run leader, MVP in 1923 and AL batting champion in 1924.

However, Ruth also had a darker side - personal issues that stemmed right the way back to his childhood. By all accounts he didn’t have an easy upbringing - born to parents of German ancestry, he was one of eight children - only two, George Herman Jr and his younger sister Mamie survived past infancy.

The youth Babe Ruth is sent to a reformatory

His father ran a saloon in Baltimore, Maryland, where the young George Herman Jr has his first taste of alcohol, sneaking behind the bar when his parents weren’t looking. He fell in with a gang of unruly kids, which led his parents to pack him off to a a reformatory: St Mary’s Industrial School for Boys.

Looking back as an adult, Ruth freely admitted skipping school and spending the day drinking with his pals. He carried those vices with him during his professional career - out on the town drinking and smoking. By that time he was earning good money, so could afford to indulge himself with exclusive Dewar’s malt whisky and Havana cigars.

Ruth has his own secret suppliers who could source Scottish whisky throughout the Prohibition era.

And New York was the perfect place for anyone with money seeking the high life. Babe would turn up at the Ansonia Hotel with a girl on his arm and a cigar poking out of his mouth. Ruth would chain smoke - either expensive Cuban cigars, cigarettes or pipes, lighting one after the other - at a time when less was known about the health risks related to smoking, or at least they were played down.

Penchant for Scottish whisky during Prohibition

His drinking and eating was also excessive - some reports claim he was unable to pass a bar without going in for a drink. As for food, he developed an insatiable appetite for hot dogs, wolfing down six or more during a single game.

But the first signs that his lifestyle were taking their toll became evident in 1925, when he was hospitalized after collapsing. He would also regularly suffer indigestion. “He’d eat two ham steaks at breakfast, have a snack before the game, and then ask for the ‘bi.’ [bicarbonate soda],” Yankees teammate Jimmy Reese recalled.

His drinking and smoking continued long after he has played his last MLB game, with the Boston Braves on May 30, 1935.

Babe Ruth’s cancer diagnosis

In 1946, Ruth was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal carcinoma - cancer in the nasopharynx, the upper part of the throat behind the nose. He underwent surgery and extensive treatment but the damage was already done. Babe Ruth died of throat cancer in August 1948, aged just 53.

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