Althouse: How to eat like Babe Ruth.

July 3, 2026

How to eat like Babe Ruth.

47 comments:

Aggie said...: Hey I'm vegan. Hot Dogs are the apocalypse, and Babe Ruth is the devil.; 7/3/26, 7:48 AM
Peachy+2 said...: that breakfast... I don't wake up hungry so that made it double gross. barf.; 7/3/26, 7:59 AM
Justabill said...: Liquor, steak, hotdogs, and Coca Cola? Is it Friday already?; 7/3/26, 8:04 AM
Leland said...: Oh no, hot dog and coke are 2 of the 4 horsemen.; 7/3/26, 8:04 AM
Peachy+2 said...: Babe lived to be 53. Not bad with that diet.; 7/3/26, 8:10 AM
boatbuilder said...: Not to quibble, but Jameson is not bourbon.; 7/3/26, 8:11 AM
bagoh20 said...: I don't buy it. It's just too much. He would have been 600 lbs.; 7/3/26, 8:13 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I don’t know about the hotdogs but Ruth’s betrayal started the Evil Empire. — see RedSox lore for more details.; 7/3/26, 8:16 AM
bagoh20 said...: At the end, you find out this guy didn't even do it. He spread it out over 5 days. Nobody could eat that 13,000 calories every day. Doing it once would be nearly impossible. I couldn't even do the snack.; 7/3/26, 8:22 AM
bagoh20 said...: Eating that diet would be harder than his homerun record.; 7/3/26, 8:23 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: At some point in my checkered past it dawned on me that there is absolutely no need to put mustard or relish or onions or anything at all on a hot dog and I have considered myself a boner fried ascetic ever since.; 7/3/26, 8:38 AM
rehajm said...: …it’s a struggle to get through just watching. I guess eggs and steak are good for you, ginger has some medicinal qualities for tummy ache, and coffee was the ped of the age…; 7/3/26, 8:38 AM
rehajm said...: …and holy fark- $21 for coke? every place ai worked that had come products coke gave it to them for free so long as they didn’t serve any other beverages coke had in its lineup…Burger King even…; 7/3/26, 8:42 AM
rehajm said...: Is the guy in australia? that’s be like $14 USD - crikey!; 7/3/26, 8:53 AM
Eva Marie said...: I figured the hot dogs and the Cokes were smaller than they are today. Yes on both counts. In the 40s hot dogs were half the size they are today. Cokes came in 6.5 oz bottles. I’m sure the guy ate a lot but portion size was not what it is today.; 7/3/26, 9:04 AM
Eva Marie said...: I asked Perplexity about the Porterhouse steaks. Turns out: “even though the individual steak cut (porterhouse) was always large by definition, the actual muscle mass and fat content per animal was significantly less in Ruth’s time. The beef itself was leaner and from a smaller animal. So his steaks may have been cut just as thick, but from a cow that was almost half the size of a modern one — meaning less marbling, less fat, and somewhat fewer calories per pound than a modern grain-finished porterhouse.”; 7/3/26, 9:18 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: Babe ruth was 6-2 and weighed 190 lbs when young. Pure muscle. And playing BB almost every day for six months. And despite myths to the contrary played Golf and worked out in the off-season.

Any serious coffee drinker could get through a pot of coffee in the AM. Andi it was weak coffee, not super strong Starbucks crap. Coke bottles were 6.5 ounces back in the 30s. Not 12 ounce cans.; 7/3/26, 9:34 AM
hanuman_prodigious_leaper said...: Roommate from Virginia learned me to fix his kind of breakfast::
Fry up 4 slices bacon
Fry 2 eggs in bacon grease
Fry 2 slices salami or bologna in remaining grease
Fry toast bread slices to sop some more grease
Coffee and orange juice
YUMMM; 7/3/26, 9:34 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: From what I can tell this mythical "Babe Ruth Breakfast" comes from one guy. In fact, the many of the sources state it was a quart of whiskey while others say a pint.

Note that we're not told Ruth's lunch or his dinner. It could be Ruth piled it on for breakfast and had a relatively sane dinner or lunch.; 7/3/26, 9:41 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: In college I had fried eggs, a big heaping of hash browns, sausage, toast with butter, OJ, and a fruit cup. It was the one good thing the college cafateria did well. I didn't have an ounce of fat on me, and other than playing tennis or swimming did no exercise.; 7/3/26, 9:44 AM
Money Manger said...: In the follow up video he tries to replicate the sex life of Babe Ruth.; 7/3/26, 9:48 AM
Eva Marie said...: BabeRuth’s extreme eating day, figuring 1940s portions, food content probably came in at 11,000 calories according to Perplexity. Perplexity also said management often restricted what he ate so a daily average was 4,500 to 6,000 calories. A modern baseball player consumes 3,500 to 5,000 calories a day. Perplexity says the difference is the composition in their diets and the caloric swings in Ruth’s diet - during the season versus off season. Ruth’s diet also included alcohol - no nutritional value but a stress on the liver.
“Modern players at 4,000 calories are mostly lean muscle. Ruth at the same intake carried significant fat because his calories came from saturated fat and alcohol, not protein and complex carbs.”
What a fascinating subject. Thanks.; 7/3/26, 9:57 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Who would drink that much alcohol at breakfast and then not drink more alcohol at other times a day? Seems like an odd combination,; 7/3/26, 10:10 AM
Eva Marie said...: “In the follow up video he tries to replicate the sex life of Babe Ruth.”
Ruth had nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), not typical throat cancer. The two most known causes of NPC are the Epstein-Barr virus (transmitted through saliva and close contact) and HPV (human papillomavirus), sexually transmitted.
Researchers have specifically noted that Ruth’s notorious womanizing meant constant exposure to HPV across hundreds or potentially thousands of sexual partners. HPV is now well established as a cause of nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal cancers.
So while it can’t be proven definitively, his sexual behavior is considered a plausible - possibly the primary - cause of the specific rare cancer that killed him, far more so than his tobacco and alcohol use, which would be more associated with laryngeal cancer (which his autopsy ruled out).; 7/3/26, 10:10 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Who would drink that much alcohol at breakfast and then not drink more alcohol at other times a day? Seems like an odd combination,; 7/3/26, 10:10 AM
Saint Croix said...: ha ha ha

I would be so sleepy after breakfast

and unable to nap, after the pot of coffee

dude; 7/3/26, 10:11 AM
Saint Croix said...: Hey I'm vegan. Hot Dogs are the apocalypse, and Babe Ruth is the devil.

ha ha

My first girlfriend was a vegetarian. We would go into an Outback, and I'd have the ribeye and she would eat my salad. I was like, "This is the perfect woman." It never occurred to me that I was the devil.

I was definitely Mr. Backslide. We would order a pizza. Pepperoni and sausage. And I was like, "Oh. We can do cheese on your half." And she said, "It's okay." So I seduced her into pepperoni and sausage.

She probably had nightmares about the pigs. And it's all my fault.; 7/3/26, 10:19 AM
Eva Marie said...: Perplexity: “His teammate Joe Dugan probably summed it up best in five words: ‘Day and night, broads and booze.’
What a character:
After games: Filled his hotel bathtub with ice and beer and hosted parties for teammates in a red robe and Moroccan slippers.
During Prohibition: He had a bootlegger in every city. (“Babe here, send up a case of Scotch, case of rye, and fill the bathtub with beer”)
On trains: He literally converted a women’s restroom into a makeshift bar serving beer and spare ribs for 50 cents.
The guy enjoyed life to the max.
Today we would say he was dealing with unresolved trauma.
But it looks like he was just having fun.; 7/3/26, 10:24 AM
Saint Croix said...: Would Babe Ruth be a star in today's game?

The correct answer is, superstar.; 7/3/26, 10:25 AM
Saint Croix said...: Babe Ruth played in the "dead ball" era. Ruth led the league in homers (while he was a pitcher!) with 11 in 1918.

The Yanks made him a full time hitter.

1920: 54
1921: 59
1922: 35
1923: 41
1924: 46
1925: 25
1926: 47
1927: 60; 7/3/26, 10:30 AM
Eva Marie said...: Ha ha, Perplexity can’t count.
“Day and night, broads and booze.” is 6 words not 5.; 7/3/26, 10:31 AM
Wilbur said...: Ruth's appetite for sex, food, liquor and general zest for life were legendary and the subject of many, many anecdotes. For many people, he was the most unforgettable person they ever knew.

That alleged diet in the video is preposterous for several reasons, one of which is that Ruth spent too much time on his other favorite pursuits to have that much time in a day to eat that often.

Another legendary individual was wrestling's Andre the Giant, billed at 7-4, 520 lbs. His reported intake of food and alcohol was truly staggering.; 7/3/26, 10:33 AM
Wilbur said...: Here's what Jimmy Breslin wrote about Ruth:

"In fact, in eighteen years of being able to look at things and remember what I have seen, the only sports legend I ever saw who completely lived up to advance billing was Babe Ruth.
It was a hot summer afternoon, and the Babe, sweat dripping from his jowls and his shirt stuck to him, came off the eighteenth green at the old Bayside Golf Club in the borough of Queens and stormed into the huge barroom of the club.
"Gimme one of them heavens to Betsy drinks you always make for me," the Babe said in his gravelly voice.
The bartender put a couple of fistfuls of ice chunks into a big, thick mixing glass and then proceeded to make a Tom Collins that had so much gin in it that the other people at the bar started to laugh. He served the drink to the Babe just as it was made, right in the mixing glass.
Ruth said something about how heavens to Betsy hot he was, and then he picked up the glass and opened his mouth, and there went everything. In one shot he swallowed the drink, the orange slice and the rest of the garbage, and the ice chunks too. He stopped for nothing. There is not a single man I have ever seen in a saloon who does not bring his teeth together a little bit and stop those ice chunks from going in. A man has to have a pipe the size of a trombone to take ice in one shot. But I saw Ruth do it, and whenever somebody tells me about how the Babe used to drink and eat when he was playing ball, I believe every word of it.
Otherwise, most legends should be regarded with suspicion."; 7/3/26, 10:35 AM
Saint Croix said...: Babe Ruth personally ended the dead ball era. He was so popular, and the fans loved the home runs so much, that the league started doing stuff to increase homers. They banned the spitballs and made umpires get rid of scuffed baseballs. I'm guessing they also juiced the baseballs a bit. Anyway, homers dramatically increased in baseball, after Babe Ruth showed everybody how popular they were.

They lowered the mound after Bob Gibson shut down everybody. 1968, Gibson had a 1.12 ERA. The next year, the majors lowered the pitching mound by five inches.

If you're so damn good that you make them change the rules, you are the GOAT.; 7/3/26, 10:39 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: I can see Ruth tossing some back some whiskey on a train. It took a whole day to get to Chicago or St.Louis by train back then. From what I've read, Ruth drank a lot, but he wasn't an alcoholic. There aren't many stories of "Babe Ruth the drunk".

BTW, Ruth went through phases in his life. After his injury in the mid-1920s and his marriage to his 2nd wife, he started to take care of himself.

He also loved his image of tossing down huge quantities of beer and hot dogs and did nothing to stop the exaggerations.; 7/3/26, 10:42 AM
Saint Croix said...: Ruth had 54 homers in 1920. The #2 guy had 19.

That's like a Secretariat stomp

What a stud.; 7/3/26, 10:46 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: People are always making dumb statements about how "He couldn't have played today, everyone is so much faster and bigger". Except, people's eyesight and hand-coordination hasn't gotten any better.

BTW, until 1920 the spitball was legal. After that, 17 spitballers were allowed to use it for the rest of their career.

You have to wonder what Ruth could've done with modern training methods and performance enhancing drugs.; 7/3/26, 10:47 AM
RCOCEAN II said...: I used to think being able to pitch and hit showed the weakness of BB in Ruth's era, but then Shohei Ohtani has shown its just a matter of individual talent.; 7/3/26, 10:48 AM
Saint Croix said...: I'm up to the afternoon snack.

I don't know what's worse, four Cokes, or jalopenos on every dog. Dude. I'm on second base and I have to go to the bathroom so bad. That would make me run extra hard.; 7/3/26, 10:52 AM
Saint Croix said...: You got me with "two heads of lettuce"

I would definitely hand those over to my girlfriend; 7/3/26, 10:53 AM
Political Junkie said...: Watched the video.
No way the Babe ate that much food every day.; 7/3/26, 11:11 AM
CT Ginger said...: Hey Wilbur, back in the 1920s there were two blue collar bars in Hartford catering to the machinists who worked at Pratt &Whitney. Most of these were German and Central Europeans. One German, we’ll call him Hans, was renowned for his ability to put away beer. He favored the Marble Pillar although he would drink at Joneseys too. One night a pool got started over whether or not Hans could chug a bucket of beer. The kitty grew and Hans got tempted. He disappeared for a bit and then returned ready to try it. The crowd paid for a bucket of beer and Hans did indeed chug it down. Later that night a buddy asked Hans where he had disappeared to. He replied, “ I wasn’t sure I could do it so I went to Joneseys to try it first”; 7/3/26, 11:30 AM
Wilbur said...: +1 GT; 7/3/26, 12:40 PM
Original Mike said...: "Who would drink that much alcohol at breakfast and then not drink more alcohol at other times a day? Seems like an odd combination,"

If I drank that much alcohol at breakfast, I wouldn't drink the rest of the day either.; 7/3/26, 1:11 PM
Saint Croix said...: 2 chicken pot pies and a Sprite

I will hit some baseballs later to see if it works

my dog had a raw chicken

she is feeling good; 7/3/26, 1:30 PM
Saint Croix said...: I've always been a Snickers man

not a Baby Ruth man

Snickers with peanuts = Yogi Berra
Snickers with almonds = Shohei Ohtani; 7/3/26, 1:35 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: "They lowered the mound after Bob Gibson shut down everybody."
It wasn't just Gibson. In 1968, 7 of the top 10 pitchers had ERA's under 2.00. Denny McLain won 31 games, the first pitcher to win 30 since Dizzy Dean 34 years earlier. Only 6 players in the entire major leagues hit above .300 that year. Yastrzemski won the AL batting title with a .301 average, the only player in the American League to hit over .300.
Fun Facts: The 3, 4, and 5 pitchers on the ERA leader board were McDowell, McNally, and McLain- Erin Go Bragh.
The number 2 and 3 leaders in Batting Average that year were brothers, Matty and Felipe Alou.
Babe Ruth alone frequently hit more home runs in a season than entire teams totaled, including 1927 when he hit 60 and the next highest team total was The Philadelphia Athletics who hit 56.
Ruth dominated the league like no player before or since.; 7/3/26, 2:02 PM