Babe Ruth was a baseball player.
Babe Ruth . Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time . By 1916 , he had built a reputation as an outstanding pitcher who sometimes hit long home runs , a feat unusual for any player in the pre-1920 dead-ball era . With regular playing time , he broke the MLB single-season home run record in 1919 .