Alright, so I was just thinking about old-timey sports figures the other day, you know, names everyone knows. And Babe Ruth came up. The Sultan of Swat, right? Huge legend. Then it hit me – I didn’t actually have a clue how he died. You hear the name constantly, see the old black and white clips, but the end of the story? Blank space for me.
So, I figured, let’s clear this up. Pulled out my phone, just did a quick search. Typed in something real basic like “how babe ruth died”. Nothing fancy. Just wanted the straight dope.
First bunch of results were all about his stats, the home runs, the Yankees, Boston, the usual stuff. Had to sift through a bit of that. You know how it is, sometimes you gotta dig past the highlight reels to get to the actual facts you’re looking for. Some sites just said “a long illness” which isn’t super helpful, is it?
Digging a Little Deeper
Kept scrolling, clicked on a couple more promising looking links. Stuff that looked less like fan pages and more like encyclopedias or history bits. And yeah, a clearer picture started to form.
It wasn’t some sudden thing, apparently. He’d been unwell for a while. That much was clear.
The Actual Cause
So, what got him in the end? It was cancer. Specifically, throat cancer. Found out it was a pretty rare type, way up in the back of the throat, behind the nose. The fancy term was nasopharyngeal carcinoma, but basically, throat cancer.
He passed away back in August 1948. Wasn’t even that old, only 53. Seems young for such a larger-than-life guy. Apparently, he’d been battling it for about two years. Tried some treatments, even some experimental stuff for the time, but I guess medicine wasn’t what it is today. Reports said he had a really tough time near the end, bad pain, voice was gone.
So, there it is. Just a quick search that turned into finding out a bit more than I expected. Throat cancer got the Babe. Rough stuff.
