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Was Babe Ruth's longest home run hit in Tampa or St. Pete? 'It depends on who you ask'

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Published  August 12, 2024 6:34pm EDT
Tampa
FOX 13 News

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    TAMPA, Fla. - Ninety-five years ago this week, Babe Ruth became the first MLB player ever to hit 500 home runs, but what may have been the Babe's longest blast happened ten years earlier.

    In 1919, in Tampa at Spring Training near what's now the University of Tampa, Ruth hit the ball 587 feet, but was it really the Babe's longest?

    "It's a great question and it depends on who you ask. We, of course, claim that he hit it here," said Rui Farias, Executive Director of the St. Petersburg Museum of History.

    "He crushed a home run that left the old Waterfront Park and broke the window of the old West Coast Inn where the St. Pete Hilton is today. From home plate that was more than 600 feet," said Farias.

    Ruth was also a player in the 1920s real estate boom.

    "If you are looking for a 1920s house in St. Petersburg, the realtor is going to tell you that either Al Capone or Babe Ruth lived here," laughed Farias.

    READ: Babe Ruth home run ball is back at UT after 102 years

    Legend has it, the Babe owned an apartment in Old Northeast St. Pete. Lou Gehrig owned one across the way. They would toss a baseball back and forth on their balconies.

    The Tampa side may have more documentation. When the Babe hit the blast here in 1919, he wore a Red Sox jersey, but the Sox sold him to the Yanks for $125,000.

    Boston didn't win the World Series for 86 years. It was famously dubbed the Curse of the Bambino.

    The charm of the Bambino was evident in both Tampa and St. Pete.

    "When the Yankees arrived for Spring Training in 1925 and Babe Ruth [got] off the train, it was like The Beatles arriving at JFK airport in 1964," said Farias.

    It seems the Babe was bigger than The Beatles -- not Penny Lane, but big money. The Babe signed a big contract at St. Pete's Princess Martha Hotel for $80,000 per year.

    "He [became] the highest paid professional athlete in the world at that time," said Farias.

    By today's standards, that's not a lot of money for a big-name athlete, but by any standard, his long homers here still hold up no matter which side you're on in the Tampa Bay area's long-running controversy over the Babe's longest blast.

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