It was Jordan before Jordan, and science was exploring why he was so unrealistically good.

Babe Ruth was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan, and in an incomparably greater form. He was a man who created one legendary franchise and launched another. He was the man who saved baseball, a figure who, in an era without mass media, had the status of a myth, a superhuman, simply different from us. At one point, this difference was even scientifically proven. He was a playboy, a megastar before the age of megastars. Babe Ruth was, simply put, bigger than life. George Herman Ruth Jr., known as Babe Ruth, was born on February 6, 1895, in Baltimore, into an ordinary working-class family. Both his parents were of German descent, and they had ten children, of whom only George and his sister Mamie survived infancy. Little is recorded about George's childhood, but what American chroniclers have gathered over decades suggests he was already a problematic child from an early age. Given that both his father and mother worked extensively, and childcare centers did not yet exist, young George spent much of his time on dirty streets between the harbor and the railroad station of the dangerous city of Baltimore. It is hardly necessary to say that such an environment was far from ideal for growing up. By the age of seven, George was already a real little troublemaker. Chroniclers claim he spent time throwing rocks at police, fighting, being fought upon, drinking whatever came to hand, and smoking with older "hoodlums," chewing tobacco on the street. His parents sent him to be cared for elsewhere Although his parents could not, or weren’t able, to provide parental care, they were so desperate that they realized that such a lifestyle would not last long. They decided to send him to a school several miles away, St. Mary’s. The school was known as an “industrial school,” which taught children of the earliest ages certain trades, run by a religious order of men who were not ordained priests. It was a orphanage, school, seedbed, and reform school all in one. The rules were very strict, discipline was key, and children were forced to engage in sports among other activities. George’s stay at St. Mary’s, and indeed American history, will prove crucial. There he met Matthias, a brother from the aforementioned order who became his second father, and there he discovered his greatest love, baseball. At that specific school, boys aged five to twenty-one lived. They attended school, learned trades, but also had duties in maintaining the school. They cooked, cleaned hallways, washed laundry, and George helped the older cook as an eight-year-old, eventually taking on that role himself. Growing up was extremely difficult among exclusively male youths who ended up leaving the school largely because they were problematic. Ruth was among the most difficult.