Rare video footage of Babe Ruth's game-winning home run from 1929 surfaces
Rare footage of Babe Ruth homer surfaces
On August 29, 1929, George Herman Ruth clobbered a eighth-inning, game-winning home run against the Washington Senators in the first game of a doubleheader. It was his 37th home run of the season and the 507th of his career.
Mike Augustyni bought the 30 seconds of magic, which includes the foul ball shown above, along with 500 feet of other vintage scenes of New York City in an eBay auction back in October.
Phil Reisman over at LoHud walks us through the evidence that this amateur video is authentic and shows The Babe hitting a three-run homer in the summer of '29:
In the film, Ruth's uniform number 3 can be seen clearly, as can that of the on-deck hitter's number 26. That's a huge clue because 26 belonged to a relatively obscure Yankee named Cedric Durst, and he wore it only in 1929, which also happened to be the first year uniform numbers came into vogue. Durst was not a good hitter. It was strange that he was ever penciled in behind Ruth in the lineup instead of the great slugger Lou Gehrig. But for some unknown reason on this day Durst was next at bat, and that let Augustyni narrow the search to August.
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