Sept/Oct 2026 (Volume 18, Issue 5)

 

By Michael Swanger

The Sultan of Swat dominated the greatest show on dirt during his 22 seasons in Major League Baseball, but he once participated in the dirt eating pastime of football while visiting Des Moines 100 years ago. 

 

Babe Ruth, the iconic Baseball Hall of Fame slugger, was in Des Moines for an exhibition game on Oct. 17, 1926, when Drake University’s head football coach and athletic director Ossie Solem invited him to visit his team during homecoming activities. Ruth did more than just offer words of inspiration, he suited up for a mock scrimmage with the Bulldogs. 

 

“We finally inquired had he ever indulged in the ‘dirt eating’ pastime known as football,” wrote Solem in his weekly column for the Des Moines Register. “The answer was sort of a woeful ‘No.’ It was evident that the ‘Big Bimbo’ (sic) had missed something in his boyhood days, and when the invitation to work out with the Bulldogs was extended, it was accepted with glee.”

 

 

Ruth played both sides of the ball that day at Drake Stadium, which had opened the previous year, though Drake’s players were not allowed to tackle him. According to the Register, Ruth “showed off his passing and punting skills, then lined up at fullback for varsity” where he “started around end, cut back and ran 20 yards for a touchdown.”

 

“Later, Solem put him at defensive tackle with the reserves, and he stopped Bulldog star Chuck Everett on a rushing attempt,” the newspaper reported. Everett, Clarence Simpson and Gail Fry appeared in photographs with Ruth that day. 

 

Solem noted in his Register column, “Babe knew just one thing about this feature of the game and that was, he was supposed to be on top. He was that.”

 

Ruth’s visit to Drake might have been the highlight of the Bulldogs’ 1926 football season as the team posted a record of 2-6, finishing in eighth place out of the Missouri Valley Conference’s 10 teams. Solem served in multiple roles at Drake from 1921 to 1931 before coaching football at the University of Iowa from 1932 to 1936. 

 

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