Ray Cavanaugh

Special for USA TODAY Sports

Boston Red Sox captain and outfielder Harry Hooper recalled Babe Ruth as first approaching the pitching mound "head down, pigeon-toed" and "walkin' with little short steps."

One can picture the Babe trotting this way in old footage of one of his 714 home runs. But this description came July 11, 1914, the day Ruth made his major league debut. Though he was an outfielder for most of his career and is best remembered for hitting home runs for the New York Yankees, Ruth broke into the major leagues as a left-handed pitcher with the Red Sox.

Ruth's first game came in a series opener against the Cleveland Naps, who featured future Hall of Fame second baseman Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, a player so popular that his team changed its name to the Naps, until Lajoie departed in 1915 and Cleveland took on its current name of the Indians.

Lajoie went hitless against Ruth, who displayed pretty solid command over the first six innings, giving up five hits and one run. The next day's Boston Globe described Ruth as a "giant lefthander" who was keeping the Cleveland hitters "off balance with his speed and sharp curves." In the seventh inning, however, he surrendered two runs on three hits.

Catching 19-year-old Ruth that day was Bill Carrigan, a Maine native nicknamed "Rough," who doubled as the team's manager. Ruth later would praise Carrigan as the greatest manager he played for. Aside from managing the Sox to consecutive titles (1915, 1916), Carrigan was a fierce brawler and strict leader who commanded an unusual degree of respect from often brash and reckless Ruth.

There was no designated hitter back then, so Ruth had his chance to bat in his debut. Against Cleveland left-hander Willie Mitchell, he went hitless in two appearances, including a strikeout in his first-ever at-bat.

In the bottom half of his somewhat-embattled seventh inning, Ruth was removed for a pinch-hitter. He was relieved by another left-hander, Dutch Leonard, who, in typical fashion that year, pitched two scoreless innings. Leonard would finish the 1914 season with a 19-5 record and a 0.96 ERA, a mark that stands as the best for a season in the modern era (since 1900).

The Red Sox won 4-3, and Ruth was credited with the victory. Five days later, he made his second start, facing the Detroit Tigers, who knocked him out of the game in the fourth inning. In his rather abbreviated first season, Ruth pitched in four games, earning two wins and a loss and posting a 3.91 ERA.

He had tension with teammates, some of whom regarded him as crude and noisy and felt that his attitude was too cavalier for such a young player. According to Kal Wagenheim, author of Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend, these veterans also did not approve of the little-used rookie pitcher taking batting practice with the regulars. At one point, Ruth returned to the locker room to find that his bats had been sawed in half. He also was tagged with the rather unflattering nickname "Big Baboon."

Conflict was nothing new for Ruth, who hailed from a hardscrabble Baltimore neighborhood known as Pigtown. Deemed as incorrigible at age 8, he was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a Catholic institution that housed the orphaned and delinquent. St. Mary's had its own thriving baseball league. As baseball was the unrivaled national pastime then, there were enough avid players to comprise 43 teams. The school also had its main team, which consisted of its best players and competed against the best players from other schools.

By the time Ruth was in his late teens, he was the star of the main team. At 19, he was signed by his hometown Baltimore Orioles (then a minor league team) for $600. After a brief stint in the minors, Ruth was sold to the Red Sox. Just a few months out of reform school, Ruth was earning $625 a month (about $15,000 in today's money).

Ruth went 89-46 with a 2.19 ERA as a pitcher for the Red Sox, but by 1918 he began to also play the outfield and bat more regularly. When he was sold to the Yankees in 1920 for $125,000 in cash and about $300,000 in loans, he became a full-time outfielder. He, of course, led the Yankees to four World Series titles.

This July 11 is a bittersweet centennial for Boston, a city long haunted by Ruth's departure, though he helped lead the Red Sox to three titles before he left. A little more a year after his major league debut, he completed an 18-8 season with a 2.44 ERA as Boston won its first of three Series titles in four years, a feat the Yankees never matched when he played for them.

Ray Cavanaugh is a freelance writer.