Baseball Legend Jackie Robinson
Baseball Legend Jackie Robinson
The Roaring Twenties of this country was a time when the entire sports world blew up into the major worldwide business that it is now. Baseball was one sport that really profited from the country’s sporting obsession, and baseball became one of the most popular sporting events to attend. Not only was it a game played by adults but it was also a family event that entire families could go to. By the beginning of the decade baseball had it’s first $100,000 deal when George Herman Ruth was traded from the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees for $125,000. The game became more than a game, it became a business. It was the emergence of the superstar, and players were making a living off of being a professional baseball player. Babe Ruth became more than a player he became an idol that was more noticeable than the President of the United States.
Other superstar players emerged along with Ruth in the twenties, such players as Lou Gehrig, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, and Ty Cobb became players that were in a way bigger than the game. They became the superstars of the league, partying like college frat boys with endless amounts of money and the celebrity to take them anywhere. They became names that were common in households nationwide, and became heroes for young children to look up to and play after. The 1927 Yankees known as one of the best baseball teams ever, were around with stars like Ruth, Gehrig, and Tony Lazerri, is still considered one of the best teams ever assembled. This is the team that young little leaguers would play dreaming one day to play in the pinstripes of a Yankee uniform, playing under the lights of the House that Ruth Built. Players were now accepting a whole new role as baseball players, becoming idols of children, and they started gaining the celebrity that some of the Hollywood stars did not even have.
Babe Ruth’s impact on the game of baseball was almost as mammoth as his home runs. When Ruth entered the league it was in its fragile, fledgling stages, and the enormous awe-inspiring slugger brought the game back into its flashy superstar filled game that it was. Ruth was different than most stars of...