all Babe Ruth needed was beer and hot dogs.
Babe Ruth
Before Chamberlain's mind-boggling claims, perhaps no Hall of Fame athlete in any sport had had a reputation for womanizing to match that of Yankee immortal Babe Ruth.
And with Ruth, it wasn't just the sex, it was across the board debauchery. Yes, Ruth enjoyed the ladies, but he also enjoyed booze, cigars, gambling, prodigious amounts of food, and staying out all night.
He missed the better part of one season with syphilis. (Of course it was not reported as such at the time. The team claimed instead that the Babe had been felled by gastrointestinal troubles due to consuming too many hot dogs-actually not an implausible claim, given his gluttonous ways.) Another season he had to get an advance on his entire year's salary because he had already spent and gambled the money away.
Ruth's teammate Bob Meusel claimed that the Babe had a habit of routinely sleeping with multiple women in the same night, stepping outside into the common area after finishing with each to take a break and smoke a cigar. Meusel often lost track of just how many women Ruth had, but then he would glance down at Ruth's ash tray to count the cigar butts. Babe's record? On at least one occasion, seven cigar butts accumulated in that ash tray.
Unlike Namath, Ruth put up spectacular numbers on the field. But like Namath, you can make the case that he didn't come close to living up to his potential. As it is he would make anyone's top five list of greatest baseball players of all time, and might well get the most number one votes. And that's with abusing his body throughout his career. Imagine how much longer he could have played, and how much better he could have played had he actually cut down on the vices and focused on keeping himself in top shape, like Cal Ripken, Jr. and so many contemporary and recent players. Not only would his records still stand, but few players if any would even be halfway to some of them.
What is it with the Yankees and debauchery, by the way? As great as Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle was, he too no doubt could have achieved far more on the field if he hadn't been drunk a good portion of his career. In modern times, Yankee great Derek Jeter is said to "get around" about as much as any star athlete (though in his case his reported sexual success has not been accompanied by a general abuse of his body, as he in fact is an excellent athlete in excellent shape).
