Babe Ruth set a new single-season home run record of 29 in 1919, a towering figure that redefined what power meant in baseball. He achieved it while still taking the mound as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox — a two-way danger no opponent could solve.
A walk-off that shook Fenway
The record chase reached its first climax on September 20, designated Babe Ruth Day before 30,000 fans packed inside Fenway Park. Ropes held spectators standing several deep in the outfield, and state guard soldiers kept order as Ruth both pitched and batted against the pennant-bound Chicago White Sox.
He left the mound in the sixth after Chicago tied the score at 3-3, shifting to left field. In the bottom of the ninth, with Lefty Williams on the hill, Ruth connected with a pitch described as high and fast and on the outside, driving it clean over the left field fence for a 4-3 victory.
Three steps past a 35-year-old mark
That walk-off blast tied Ned Williamson's major-league record of 27 home runs, set in 1884. Ruth broke it outright four days later at the Polo Grounds, sending a ninth-inning shot over the roof against the Yankees, then sealed the season on September 27 with his 29th home run off Washington's Rip Jordan — his first in that city, meaning he had now homered in every league ballpark.
The tally surpassed Gavvy Cravath's modern National League best of 12 by 17, and exceeded the Yankees' entire club output of 45 that year. No one had ever dominated a home-run leaderboard with such a chasm between first and second.
Still the pitcher in the box score
Through all of this, Ruth remained a two-way force. His 15th start of the year left him with a 9-5 record and a 2.95 ERA, while he simultaneously led the majors in runs batted in, slugging, and on-base percentage. "Never will we forget the setting of that 27th circuit crash by the Colossus," the Boston Herald's Burt Whitman wrote the next day.
Two months after the season closed, the Red Sox sold him to the Yankees for $100,000, a deal that still echoes across the sport. Ruth's own record lasted just one season — he hit 54 in 1920 — but the 1919 figure was the first true blast of the live-ball era and a bridge from the pitcher who won three World Series to the slugger who would finish with 714.
