Two of the most familiar colours of the American summer: green and cream. Ghostly-bright green for the sight of a perfectly kept baseball ground, with the scent of hot dogs and beer in cardboard cups rising in the air. And cream with pinstripes for the sight of the New York Yankees running around it as they make yet another home run. Most baseball players have rather bulky, bottom-heavy figures, yet they look almost elegant in the Yankee uniform. This is no coincidence. The wafer-thin vertical stripes were originally designed for the bulbous form of the legendary Babe Ruth to make him look trimmer, after he was sold by the Boston Red Sox to the Yankees in 1919. This sale famously led to "the curse of the bambino": the Red Sox have never won a World Series since. Sure enough, this summer, the Yankees are on top again. And that flattering off-white pinstripe is still the most famous uniform in any US sport.
Babe Ruth was not just the greatest American sportsman of all time; he was also the greatest of American eaters. Compared to Babe Ruth, Elvis looks like a neurotic food faddist. Just one look at the Babe would tell you he wasn't a man who fretted over calories. Babe Ruth resembled a strutting capon (and, incidentally, sometimes ate whole capons for dinner, followed by potatoes, spinach, corn, peas, beans, bread, pie and ice cream). His squashed-up baby face, as expressive as a cartoon, was a gift to silent cinema. The Babe's personality was that of an overgrown child, too. He played ball, he crashed fast cars, he whored and he ate, and did all of these things exuberantly and unselfconsciously - for the most part, anyhow.
He liked to have something in his mouth at all times. It might be chewing gum, or a cigar, or a strong drink, but much of the time it was food. There are so many stories about Ruth's eating, it is hard to know where to begin. When he ordered steak, which he did often, he reminded the waiter to "put a few lamb chops around that steak. And lots of potatoes." He thought nothing of eating an omelette of 18 eggs, accompanied with half a dozen slices of buttered toast and a few cups of coffee. Another player remembered him "at midnight, propped up in bed, order six club sandwiches, a platter of pig's knuckles and a pitcher of beer. He'd down all that while smoking a big black cigar. Next day, if he hit a homer, he'd trot around the bases complaining about gas pains and a bellyache." His biographer Robert W Creamer commented: "He belched magnificently and, I was told, could fart at will."
Like Oprah, that other American icon, Babe Ruth's weight fluctuated, in his case between about 198lbs and about 270lbs. Looking at pictures of this pudgy heffalump, it is hard to imagine him moving with any speed. Yet he flew round the pitch like a gazelle. Ruth never became enormous, though, partly because he got so much exercise and partly because he ate a bit less in winter, when the baseball season was over. Ruth's approach to dieting was uncomplicated, and based more on the principle of minimising wind than losing weight. He used to eat three hot dogs before every game. But then, one day, he gobbled them down too quickly and felt bloated. So, after that, instead of cutting out the hot dogs, he supplemented them with a glass of bicarb of soda. He drank this so much he called it his "milk".
Given his notorious love of food, it seemed an obvious move to bring out a candy bar with his name on it - the Babe Ruth's Home Run Candy. But it wasn't a successful venture. There was already a chocolate bar called the Baby Ruth, named after President Grover Cleveland's daughter. The manufacturers, the Curtiss Candy Company, complained about the new Babe Ruth candy bar to the Patent Office, and he was forced to withdraw his brand. But you can still buy Baby Ruth bars in the US, and the irony is that many Americans now eat them believing they are named after their sporting hero, not the offspring of a second-rate president.
Just occasionally, Babe tempered his natural appetite and foul mouth and tried to appear genteel. His attempts in this direction were generally comical. For example, he was once at a formal dinner party when a magnificent asparagus salad was served. As Creamer describes, Babe was usually slightly diffident at first on such occasions, checking to see what everyone else was doing before he made a move. When he saw the salad, he checked to see which fork was meant to be used. Then he lifted this fork and gave the asparagus a prod before putting the fork back down without having taken any salad on his plate.
"Don't you care for the salad, Mr Ruth?" his hostess asked.
"Oh, it's not that," he replied, in his poshest, most unctuous voice. "It's just that asparagus makes my urine smell."
