June 12, 1922: Hub Fans The Babe Three Times In St. Louis

     On June 12, 1922, St. Louis Browns rookie pitcher Hub Pruett led the way to a 7-1 Browns victory over the Yankees at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The hurler went the distance in the contest striking out six. What makes this game so significant is three of those strikeouts came against "The Great Bambino" himself, the one and only Babe Ruth.

     As the story goes, Pruett owned Ruth like no pitcher in the game ever had, striking him out 11 times in the first thirteen times he had faced him during that '22 season. "The Sultan of Swat" hit just .190 against Pruett. He did hit two home runs against him, with the first of the two coming in September of that '22 season. Pruett went just 29-48 over seven seasons in the big leagues, and 14-18 with the Browns over three years. His career was not one that ended in Cooperstown, however, he would earn a place in baseball history as the man who could fan the mighty Babe.

     Primarily a reliever later in his career, Hub struck Babe out a total of 15 times. When his days on the diamond ended, he went back to school and finished up a degree in medicine. He had used the money from his playing days to get that degree, and when he got a chance to talk to Ruth later in life he thanked him for helping put him through medical school. Ruth looked over at him and said "If there had been more like you, no one would have ever heard of me." That is some compliment from a man of his stature.

Here is a link to an ESPN article, which is an interview with Hub's son: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/44743/pruett-heir-remembers-ruthian-legacy

Note: through the years the numbers were skewed a bit. I do believe some of the numbers in the ESPN story may be slightly different than the numbers I used here. However, I looked though multiple newspapers and went with the most widely reported numbers from those days. With that said, the ESPN article is a great one with a family member, and that family has called St. Louis home for life, so I thought it was a good one to share.

Also, I may sprinkle in some Browns facts like this one into the mix. I view them as a lost part of St. Louis history, so I would like to find some interesting things to share. As always, I hope you enjoy all the facts that I come up with. P.S. Go Cards!!!

Check out the box score here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SLA/SLA192206120.shtml