OT -Babe Ruth Museum -Baltimore

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Posted By: <b>Bill Stone</b><p>I will be traveling up East in September and wondered if the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore is worth going out of my to see? Do they have any baseball cards on display? Comments will be appreciated. ps--I have already checked the schedule and unfortunately the Orioles are on the road.

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Posted By: <b>James Feagin</b><p>Sports Legends at Camden Yards (Baltimore-themed museum) is open during the season, and the Babe Ruth museum in close. Both have cards on display, and I <i>think</i> the Babe Ruth museum has the 1914 Baltimore News on display. Sports Legends has a TON of memorabilia and cards as well. Admission is very cheap and it is well worth it.<br /><br />James

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Posted By: <b>Griffin's</b><p>I enjoyed the museum as well. It's right in the middle of town (and a block or 3 from the churchyard where Edgar Allen Poe is buried) and doesn't take long to go thru. Well worth the time.

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Posted By: <b>Alan</b><p>Also, Steve Geppi (who owns GMRS & Hakes auction houses) is opening a sports & entertainment pop culture museum around the middle of September right in that area.

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Posted By: <b>Greg</b><p>Here are some photos of the Babe Ruth Museum we took on our trip to Baltimore last year. Great place to visit and well worth the short walk from the ballpark. If I'm not mistaken, any cards there were reprints, as seen below.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.network54.com/Realm/tmp/1155866137.JPG"> <img src="http://www.network54.com/Realm/tmp/1155866160.JPG"> <img src="http://www.network54.com/Realm/tmp/1155866179.JPG"> <br /><br />While I was there, I got talking to one of the curators regarding the Babe's father's bar. Being a long time collector of pre-prohibition brewery advertising and long time Sox fan, I've always been fascinated by a photograph of the Babe and his dad tending bar. I heard that it was located in the spot currently occupied by center field of Camden Yards. He mentioned that this was true, but corrected me in stating that the bar which was located there was actually his dad's first bar. According to the curator, the bar we were interested in was his dad's second bar, still existant and still in operation, even though he never personally went there himself. Obviously we (my dad, wife, 7 year old daughter and myself - ok, make that only me, the others just tagged along) had to find it to see what was still standing. He gave us directions and told us it was now known as the "Goddess". Here is what we found"<br /><br /><img src="http://www.network54.com/Realm/tmp/1155866194.JPG"> <br /><br />The only problem was that it was all locked up at two in the afternoon. It also had black windows. It also had a annoyed wife with daughter standing in front of it as we kept trying to get in the door. She picked up on it before we did. Come to find out, Mr. Ruth's bar is now a strip joint.<br /><br />Never did get in there....oh well.<br /><br />Greg

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Posted By: <b>peter ullman</b><p>The Goddess...how funny! I went to dental school in DT Baltimore and I lived right next to the Goddess...a lame strip joint where the girls wear pasties! The Babe Ruth museum is worth checking out. The harbor view/way bar is worth checking out to...just a few blocks away. They used to have a barnstorming photo of Babe and Lou behind the bar...it was real! The visionary museum kicks ass too!<br /><br />pete in mn

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Posted By: <b>Lee Behrens</b><p>I also was at the babe Ruth Musuem a couple of years ago and was pleasantly surprised at the content within. The coolest thing I thought was an Cabinet card of a mascot (young boy) and they actually had the uniform he was wearing.<br /><br />Lee

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Posted By: <b>Alan</b><p>Here's the story of it from a few years ago:<br /><br /><br />BALTIMORE, May 19 - The fate of George Kritikos's strip club here, where his Greek immigrant American dream has collided with the city's renovation vision, may now depend on the bar's connection to the baseball legend Babe Ruth.<br /><br />A Baltimore native, the Babe, George Herman Ruth Jr., bought the bar, known as Ruth's Cafe, for his father, George Sr., in 1916.<br /><br />At the time, Ruth was a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Two years later, the Red Sox won their last World Series. And his father died in a brawl outside the bar. <br /><br />It is a history Mr. Kritikos has come to know well. Indeed, he has learned all he can about his building's ties to Ruth after the city passed an ordinance in March marking his small rowhouse club, the Goddess, for a possible condemnation under eminent domain to make way for an urban renewal project.<br /><br />Mr. Kritikos did not buy the spot on Eutaw Street because of its baseball lore, but for its location. Not only is his club near Camden Yards, the home stadium for the Baltimore Orioles, but it is strolling distance to the M&T Bank Stadium, where the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League play; the city's convention center; and the Inner Harbor, the city's waterfront shopping area.<br /><br />Mr. Kritikos, who has owned the building nine years, said he had spent $300,000 renovating it into a business catering to a natural clientele. "'You got two stadiums here," Mr. Kritikos said. "You got the convention center. You got the hotels. It doesn't get more prime than this."<br /><br />Inside the club, the only tribute to Babe Ruth is a laminated photograph hanging behind the bar that shows father and son in ties, vests and bartender aprons posing behind a hulking wooden bar. It has long since been replaced with a newer model that serves as a precarious runway for the club's high-heeled entertainment.<br /><br />Mr. Kritikos is hoping to get the building listed on the National Historic Register and thwart any efforts to tear it down to make way for new development.<br /><br />The Goddess happens to stand at the gateway of Baltimore's Westside Project, a 100-block urban renewal project to restore this mix of ornate banks, former department stores and small shops.<br /><br />The Westside's showpiece to date is the Hippodrome Theater at the France Merrick Performing Arts Center, a onetime grand movie house two blocks up Eutaw Street that reopened in February.<br /><br />Across the street from the theater is a $200 million complex of housing, parking and 35,000 square feet of retail space. Farther north an old hotel and department store have been renovated as two condominium complexes; the University of Maryland Hospital's expanding campus can be found there as well.<br /><br />Mayor Martin O'Malley approved a city council bill in March that allowed the city to use eminent domain to purchase the Goddess and other buildings in a two-block area.<br /><br />"Being that it's a gateway into the Westside, those two blocks become pretty significant," said Sharon Grinnell, chief operating officer for the Baltimore Development Corporation, which is overseeing the development of the Westside.<br /><br />Ms. Grinnell said that the agency had nothing against adult entertainment in that location. The corner, though, connects Camden Yards to the west side; while the development agency has no specific plans for it, she said, it wants the option to develop the area. <br /><br />Mr. Kritikos is only the latest small business owner to get embroiled in the city's Westside Project. While the neighborhood's days of large department stores disappeared decades ago, these streets still thrived as a shopping district for lower-income households, anchored by the city's 222-year-old Lexington Market. <br /><br />But when the Westside Project began six years ago, small businesses from hatmakers to electronic shops were relocated. Some shut down for good. The agency also negotiated with the state about which historic buildings should be saved and which could be torn down, Ms. Grinnell said.<br /><br />John Murphy, a lawyer for Mr. Kritikos, said he did not know about the Goddess's link to Babe Ruth until he was sitting in it with his client.<br /><br />"He went over and got that picture and brought it over to me and I saw Babe Ruth standing there,'' Mr. Murphy recalled. "That's a big deal.'' <br /><br />Ms. Grinnell questioned the new emphasis on the club's history. "The building has been there how long?'' she said. "And it's operating as adult entertainment and all of a sudden you want to play up the significance of Babe Ruth." <br /><br />In Baltimore, the most celebrated site remaining from Babe Ruth's formative years is his grandmother's house, where he was born just before his mother moved away. That house is now the Babe Ruth Museum, which is not "getting in the middle" of the dispute, said Laurie Ward, spokeswoman for the museum. "We have our own historical site to promote and maintain so we can't take up the cause for the bar."<br /><br />Other than the museum, there is no well-marked Ruthian historic site. George Ruth owned several bars, including one that was once located in what is now center field in Camden Yards. The only other Ruth-related site is the Saint Mary's Industrial School, now named the Cardinal Gibbons School, where he lived and played ball.<br /><br />Other than installing a brass plaque honoring Ruth, Mr. Kritikos hesitates to make use of the building's legacy. But he would like to take advantage of the corner.<br /><br />"The strip club business is not the issue," he said. "We know we can make it over and make money. Anybody who knows about location, knows location is the most important thing.''<br /><br />

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Posted By: <b>Greg</b><p>Pete...<br /><br />Too funny. I'm actually a periodontist.<br /><br />Allen... great info. Thanks for sharing. In that photo of Ruth and his dad at the bar..If you look close to the upper right hand corner you see what appears to be a lithographed poster of a girl. The image appears to be that of the "Red Sox Girl" put out by the Burkhardt Brewing Company of Boston. I know there's a postcard of the same image which I've been searching for. It may also be of something else, as this is a stock image, but it would make sense that it was for the Sox given the circumstance (I believe the other image might have been for something other than beer...If memory serves me right, there was one in last year's auctions, maybe REA? Can't remember)<br /><br />FINALLY I had something to share rather than just lurking and not having anything to contribute.<br /><br />All the best,<br /><br />Greg

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Posted By: <b>Darrell</b><p>The birthplace museum is small and will be open until oct.yes they do have cards one is my grandfathers 1921 koester bread card.Sold one like it in milehighs auction back in june.A real thrill to have pops card next to a bat shoeless joe gave the babe.Well worth it.P.S.stay on the east side of MLK blvd

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Posted By: <b>Darrell</b><p>All the cards in the birthplace museum are real.The museum closes in Oct. for rehab.They hope to reopen before openning day next year.If you come to town get over to fells piont.A very old cool part of town.Pops father owned a place called John Stevens.Good food Good People.