Babe Ruth Hits 500: Baseball's Home Run King
Babe Ruth hit his 500th career home run off Willis Hudlin at League Park in Cleveland on August 11, 1929, becoming the first player in Major League Baseball history to reach the milestone. The ball sailed into the right-field bleachers in the second inning of a game the Yankees won 6-5. Ruth was 34 years old and had been hitting home runs at a pace no one had imagined possible when he entered the league as a pitcher fifteen years earlier. The 500-homer mark became baseball's definitive measure of power-hitting greatness. Only 28 players have reached it in over a century of professional baseball, and the number remains a virtual guarantee of Hall of Fame induction.
August 11, 1929
97 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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