Babe Ruth hits his first professional home run, a 400 foot shot at the Cape Fear Fairgrounds in Fayetteville
March 7, 1914, George Herman Ruth Jr. hit his first home run as a professional baseball player and gained the nickname “Babe” in Fayetteville.
Ruth began playing baseball in his native Baltimore. At age 19, Jack Dunn, manager of the Baltimore Orioles, recognized his talent and signed him to his first professional contract. A few weeks later, the team headed to Fayetteville en route to Florida for spring training.
While in Fayetteville, the players learned that Dunn had legally adopted Ruth to keep him with the Orioles. That, combined with Ruth’s playing on the elevators at the Lafayette Hotel, resulted in the older players teasing him as “Dunn’s baby,” later shortened to “Baby” and “Babe.”
In the last inning of the exhibition game at the Cape Fear Fair Ground, Ruth hit a long home run (400 plus feet). He described it saying, “I hit it as I hit all the others, by taking a good gander at the pitch as it came up to the plate, twisting my body into a backswing and then hitting it as hard I as I could swing.” Ruth later commented, “I got to some bigger places than Fayetteville after that, but darn few as exciting.”
A state marker claims the famous moniker ‘Babe’ was given to the 19 year-old during his stay in this North Carolina city when his teammates teased him about being adopted by the team’s manager Jack Dunn, who legally became the parent of St. Mary’s Industrial School to keep him on the club
@ET-DC@eyJkeW5hbWljIjp0cnVlLCJjb250ZW50IjoicG9zdF90YWdzIiwic2V0dGluZ3MiOnsiYmVmb3JlIjoiTGVhcm4gTW9yZSBhYm91dCB0aGUgdGVhbXMsIHBsYXllcnMsIGJhbGwgcGFya3MgYW5kIGV2ZW50cyB0aGF0IGhhcHBlbmVkIG9uIHRoaXMgZGF0ZSBpbiBoaXN0b3J5IGp1c3QgY2xpY2sgdGhlIHRhZ3MhICAiLCJhZnRlciI6IiIsImxpbmtfdG9fdGVybV9wYWdlIjoib24iLCJzZXBhcmF0b3IiOiIgfCAiLCJjYXRlZ29yeV90eXBlIjoicG9zdF90YWcifX0=@