Video of the Day: Babe Ruth Takes His Cuts

Opening Day 2014 is right around the corner, and a lot of people (this writer included) have baseball on the brain. While we wait for the first pitches to be thrown out, a lot of us are talking about what players will be great this season and argue over who will win the World Series. Check out SI Kids' April issue for our complete 2014 MLB Preview, as well as this week's Sports Illustrated for even more baseball coverage!

But if you need a break from all the stats and predictions, we have just the thing for you: Rare video of the legendary Babe Ruth in action.

Yesterday, the University of South Carolina's Moving Image Research Collections released a short clip of Ruth from a June 1,1925, game against the Washington Senators. The clip is an outtake from an old Fox Movietone newsreel — basically, a news program that played in movie theaters before the people owned televisions — and it's all sorts of cool. Check out the Sultan of Swat's crazy swing! Those Yankees jerseys are just pinstripes! Is that Lou Gehrig hanging out in the dugout? (Yes, it is! And this game was the first of what would become his Iron Man streak of 2,130 games played in a row!)

There's a lot of history in a minute-52 seconds, and if you're a baseball fan it's the coolest video you'll see today:




The video was discovered by baseball researcher Tom Schieber. You can read more about the footage on his website. The New York Times also has a lot of great info about the video.

Photo: Tom Sande/AP