Babe Ruth on Film

Eight seconds may not seem like a lot, but when it's never-before-seen footage of baseball great Babe Ruth -- well, now that's something to relish.

Given that his career took place before the age of television, almost no footage of The Bambino exists at all. Even though he played American League Baseball for 21 years, every last scrap of footage found of him hitting home runs, running bases, and mugging for cameras amounts to just one hour-long tape. The footage lives at Major League Baseball Productions, a collection of 150,000 hours of tape spaning more than 100 years of baseball's history.

But now that collection includes a precious eight seconds more, thanks to a New Hampshire man who stumbled upon the 8-millimeter footage while digging around in his grandfather's home movie collection, according to a story in The New York Times. The footage is part of a 90-second clip shot from the first-base stands at Yankee Stadium. It's the archive's only footage of Ruth playing in the outfield. In one sequence, he strikes out, looks unhappy about it and drags his bat through the dirt while Lou Gehrig watches from on deck.

Researchers haven't yet nailed down when the footage was taken. They believe it's from 1928, based on a series of clues. For starters, none of the players have numbers of their backs, which means it was recorded before 1929 when the Yankees started wearing them. It's definitely from after 1925 when Gehrig took over as starter. Ads in the outfield match photos taken in 1928, further narrowing down the year.

What's harder to determine is the actual day the footage was shot. It could be opening day or the World Searies because the seats are full and the shadows are long, suggesting it's either late or early in the season. But it's unclear what team the Yankees are playing (again, no numbers). One thing they do know: Ruth struck out, narrowing it down to Games 1 and 2 of the 1928 World Series, played at Yankee Stadium against the St. Louis Cardinals. Now that's something.

You gotta wonder: did the man who shot the footage have any idea how significant it would one day be? In this YouTube era where just about every second of life is recorded by multiple sources, it's almost inconceivable that eight seconds will ever again be so treasured.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.