How baseball’s greatest season ever changed the game for good

Babe Ruth was in a bad way.

There were surgeries and suspensions, lawsuits, and tax troubles.

He was fined by the New York Yankees for late-night carousing and had split from his wife Helen, costing him $100,000, and their 125-acre farm in Sudbury MA.

But baseball needed him, as Dan Taylor explains in “Baseball at the Abyss – The Scandals of 1926, Babe Ruth, and the Unlikely Savior Who Rescued a Tarnished Game” (Rowman & Littlefield).

The game, reeling from the retirement of the legendary Ty Cobb after game-fixing allegations in 1926, needed a hero — but the ‘Bambino’ wasn’t in the best shape to shoulder the burden.

His decadent lifestyle had caught up with him, his weight ballooning to over 250 pounds. 

Even the Yankees’ famous pinstriped jersey couldn’t conceal his bulk. 

The press, meanwhile, described him as a “bay window” or “toothpicks attached to a piano.”

Enter Christy Walsh.

As the first sports agent, Walsh knew Ruth’s enduring popularity was key not just to their prosperity, but to baseball’s too. 

“Ruth was and continues to be a phenomenon,” Taylor tells The Post.

“Fans today fail to grasp just how good he was, and how his Herculean talent made him such a significant figure — not just to baseball but to American culture.”

Under Walsh, Ruth was knocked into shape. 

He enlisted Artie McGovern, a personal trainer and former club fighter from Hells’ Kitchen to put Ruth through his paces.

Even when Ruth went to Hollywood for movie work, McGovern accompanied him, dragging him out of bed for 6 am runs and setting up a studio gym for boxing and weight training.

McGovern took control of his diet too. 

Out went the half dozen hotdogs, four steaks, and 12 cups of coffee he consumed each day, replaced with chicken or fish and water.

There was no booze or sugar, desserts, or fried food.

Within months, Ruth’s waist shrunk by over eight inches and his weight plummeted 40 pounds. “Ballclubs and players today pour a lot into strength and conditioning to improve their skills,” adds Taylor. “Who would have thought that it all emanated from Babe Ruth?” 

The difference to Ruth’s game was staggering. 

From being washed up at 30, in 1927, aged 33, he hit 60 home runs – 10 more than every other team averaged in total for their entire seasons. 

“It was not only his greatest season,” adds Taylor, “but the greatest season in the history of baseball.”