George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 - August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "The Bambino" and "The Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a stellar left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees. Ruth established many MLB batting (and some pitching) records, including career home runs (714), runs batted in (RBIs) (2,213), bases on balls (2,062), slugging percentage (.690), and on-base plus slugging (OPS) (1.164); the latter two still stand today. Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time.

Ruth met Helen Woodford (1897-1929), by some accounts, in a coffee shop in Boston where she was a waitress, and they were married as teenagers on October 17, 1914. Although Ruth later claimed to have been married in Elkton, Maryland, records show that they were married at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Ellicott City. They adopted a daughter, Dorothy (1921-1989), in 1921. Ruth and Helen separated around 1925, reportedly due to his repeated infidelities. They appeared in public as a couple for the last time during the 1926 World Series. Helen died in January 1929 at age 31 in a house fire in Watertown, Massachusetts, in a house owned by Edward Kinder, a dentist with whom she had been living as "Mrs. Kinder". In her book, My Dad, the Babe, Dorothy claimed that she was Ruth's biological child by a mistress named Juanita Jennings. She died in 1989.  On April 17, 1929 (only three months after the death of his first wife) Ruth married actress and model Claire Merritt Hodgson (1897-1976) and adopted her daughter Julia. It was the second and final marriage for both parties. By one account, Julia and Dorothy were, through no fault of their own, the reason for the seven-year rift in Ruth's relationship with teammate Lou Gehrig. Sometime in 1932, during a conversation that she assumed was private, Gehrig's mother remarked, "It's a shame [Claire] doesn't dress Dorothy as nicely as she dresses her own daughter." When the comment inevitably got back to Ruth, he angrily told Gehrig to tell his mother to mind her own business. Gehrig, in turn, took offense at what he perceived as Ruth's comment about his mother. The two men reportedly never spoke off the field until they reconciled at Yankee Stadium on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, July 4, 1939, which was shortly after Gehrig's retirement from baseball.  Although Ruth was married throughout most of his baseball career, when Colonel Huston asked him to tone down his lifestyle, the player said, "I'll promise to go easier on drinking and to get to bed earlier, but not for you, fifty thousand dollars, or two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars will I give up women. They're too much fun."

Ask a question about this article.
Tell me something noteworthy about his personal life [remember we can ask more than 8 questions ok]?