The Babe Ruth Home Run Award was an annual award presented to the previous season's leading

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the Baseball (ball), ball is hit in such a way that the batting (baseball), batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safe (baseball), safely in one play without any error ( ...

hitter in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

(MLB). The award was named after the legendary

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional Baseball in the United States, baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nickna ...

, who led the

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is the younger of two sports leagues, leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western L ...

in homers 12 times.At the following webpage, ''scroll down to'' "The Babe Ruth Homerun Award" (including photograph of the award trophy and list of recipients through the 2007 season). It was first awarded to

Mark McGwire Mark David McGwire (born October 1, 1963), nicknamed "Big Mac", is an American former professional baseball first baseman who played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1986 to 2001 for the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Card ...

after his record-setting 1998 season. The award was a , bronze statue of Ruth based on a 1920 photo of him following through on a tremendous swing. The Babe Ruth Home Run Award was developed by brothers Jim and Brian Sullivan. Jim was the sculptor, while Brian focused on the marketing of the award. The Sullivans originally wanted to create a life-size statue of Ruth as a tourist attraction similar to the

Michael Jordan statue The statue of Michael Jordan, also known as ''The Spirit'' (and sometimes referred to as ''Michael Jordan's Spirit''), is a bronze sculpture by Omri Amrany and Julie Rotblatt-Amrany that has been located inside the United Center in the Near We ...

. Unable to secure a sponsor, they created the award to honor Ruth. The trophy was estimated to cost around $4,000 as of 2006, and it was funded by the Sullivans and given on behalf of their company, Sullivan Artworks based in

Weymouth, Massachusetts Weymouth is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is one of 13 municipalities in the state to have city forms of government while retaining "town of" in their official names. It is named after Weymouth, Dorset, a coastal town ...

. MLB was not interested in sponsoring the award; the

already honored its home run champion with a nameless award, and the

National League National League often refers to: *National League (baseball), one of the two baseball leagues constituting Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada *National League (division), the fifth division of the English football (soccer) system ...

offered the Mel Ott Award. Both the awards received little publicity. The Babe Ruth Home Run Award was usually presented to the recipient by Ruth's daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens, or her son, Tom Stevens.

Key

List of winners

Notes

References

External links

Babe Ruth Home Run Award photos
at BabeRuthCentral.com {{Babe Ruth Babe Ruth Major League Baseball trophies and awards Awards established in 1998 1998 establishments in Massachusetts Awards disestablished in 2009

Key

List of winners

See also

Notes

References

External links