Babe Ruth, aka the Great Bambino and the Sultan of Swat, is a larger-than-life baseball legend known not only for his on-field heroics but also his antics off the diamond. One of the pillars of Ruthian mythology is his outsized appetite. He wasn’t especially large as baseball players go — he stood 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed 215 pounds, which is the exact same height and just a few pounds more than the average modern MLB player. While he was no giant (nor is there any record of him downing 100 beers like André the Giant), his eating and drinking feats — especially the latter — are the stuff that stories are made of. One breakfast, witnessed by a fellow ballplayer, has gone down in history as an example of Ruth’s excesses.
One time, when Ruth and Paul Derringer were traveling by train, the former ordered an exceptionally large — and boozy — morning meal. While Ruth grew up drinking beer, he later developed a taste for whiskey. On this occasion, he consumed a pint of the stuff mixed 50/50 with ginger ale to wash down a porterhouse steak, four fried eggs, an unspecified amount of fried potatoes, and a pot of coffee. Ruth is said to have told Derringer that this was what he ate for breakfast every day.
Babe Ruth’s Brobdingnagian breakfast may have been mostly for show
Was Babe Ruth telling the truth about his breakfast or simply trolling his fellow ballplayer? He certainly seems to have sold generations of sportswriters on the concept, as this particular breakfast has long been circulating as a baseball “fun fact.” In truth, it’s more likely Ruth was simply putting on a show. He felt he had to live up to his own legend not just as a ballplayer, but also as a glutton and drunkard, and did his best to give people what they expected. In pro wrestling they call this keeping kayfabe, and while baseball has no similar term, it’s how Ruth lived his life in the public eye.
Teammate Waite Hoyt has said that Ruth was no alcoholic. Sure, he liked a drink, and technically broke the law to drink during Prohibition (which lasted from 1920 to 1933), but that was not uncommon; Even the Church bought a lot of sacramental wine during the booze ban, while doctors prescribed hard liquor for, ahem, “medicinal purposes.” Before the 1933 baseball season began, Ruth’s boozy breakfasts seemed to be a thing of the past. Instead of refueling with whiskey, he breakfasted on bacon and eggs, cereal, toast, coffee, and orange juice. Sadly, despite his newfound devotion to a healthier lifestyle, the 38-year-old Ruth was reaching the end of his career. His bat still had a few hits left in it, though, including the first-ever home run hit in the inaugural All-Star Game on July 6, 1933.
