One would think that, given how important Babe Ruth is to the sport of baseball, more would made of the fact that the baseball field where Ruth honed his skills as a child still remains to this day a baseball field in an area just west of downtown Baltimore.

The Infield at Babe Ruth Field, Baltimore, Maryland

Near the corner of South Canton Avenue and Route 1 just a half mile north of Interstate 95 is a ball field known as “Babe Ruth Field.”

Babe Ruth Field Scoreboard, Baltimore, Maryland

In 2007, as part of my research for Deadball, I visited the site, which at the time was still Cardinal Gibbons High School.  Formerly, the school had been the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, an orphanage and reform school run by the Catholic Church.

Dugout at Babe Ruth Field, Baltimore, Maryland

In addition to the cinder block dugouts and the chainlink backstop, one major difference between the field that Ruth played on and the field as it exists today is the orientation of home plate, which in Ruth’s day, was located in what is now centerfield.

Center Field at Babe Ruth Field, Baltimore, Formerly Location of Home Plate

Babe Ruth spent the majority of his formative years as a ward of the school, his parents having signed him over to the Xaverian Brothers out of desperation when he was just eight or nine years old.

Babe Ruth At St. Mary's Industrial School For Boys (Huggins & Scott Auctions image)

Brother Matthias Bouttlier, the school’s disciplinarian,  helped harness Ruth’s natural abilities.

Home Plate at Babe Ruth Field, Baltimore, Maryland

In Deadball, the protagonist, Byron Bennett, then a member of the Cardinal Gibbons varsity baseball team, thinks he sees a game being played on the old St. Mary’s configuration of the field wherein George Herman Ruth hits a home run into the crowd of students sitting beyond right field.

Left Field at Babe Ruth Field, Formerly Right Field

With Cardinal Gibbons High School now closed and the facility no longer in use, the future of Babe Ruth Field is uncertain.  Hopefully the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which owns the field, will continue to preserve the historic ballpark so future generations can stand where the Babe once stood and play ball.