Photo found at estate sale may give insight into a young Babe Ruth

A photo found at a California estate sale may reveal more about a legendary baseball player. 

After years of research, a woman said the photo, which hasn’t been made public before, just might be Babe Ruth.

Photo of young Babe Ruth

Babe Ruth is one of the most recognizable names in baseball history, but what if part of his story has been missing?

"I call it the lost years of Babe Ruth," Storm Glenn said.

Years before the pinstripes and becoming ‘the’ Babe, George Herman Ruth Junior was born in Baltimore in 1895. His parents sent him to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, where he was already becoming baseball greatness. Between his early years and late years in school, though, there weren’t publicly available pictures.

Glenn said now there is.

"My family were antiquers, and I sort of have a knack for it," Glenn said.

Glenn said she was just browsing an estate sale in California and bought a few random items.

"It wasn’t until I carried it all out to my car," Glenn said. "We looked at it together, and it has a circle drawn around one of the player's face that has a long line out that said ‘Ruth’ and we both said ‘what?!’"

Cherryvale-Baltimore connection

The photo showed a youth baseball team, one face circled, and to Glenn, it looked strikingly familiar. That moment launched an 11-year investigation, tracing Babe Ruth to a youth team called Cherryvale.

"My journey sort of started with the cherry connection to Baltimore," Glenn said.

Glenn followed her research, even identifying what she believes is the exact spot the photo was taken, in Cherry Hill, Baltimore.

She even studied Ruth’s features.

"Besides the dip in the eyebrow, there is a resting spread of his pinky finger that kind of sticks out," Glenn said. "So Ruth, being a left-handed thrower, was always putting his pinky in the thumb slot for all those years."

Forensics expert weighs in

The more she compared the image to known photos of Ruth, the more convinced she became. Still, Glenn wanted confirmation from someone who knows faces better than almost anyone.

"I hold the record for identifying the most people of any forensic artists in the word," Forensic Artist Lois Gibson said.

Gibson said her work goes beyond resemblance.

"Age progression, an intense knowledge of the structure of the skeleton, and then I did about 8,000 portraits before I did this, so I'm intimately understanding of faces," Gibson said.

Gibson said she tested the theory.

"If you take one and lay it on top of the other, transparently, here they are about 50-50. It's impossible for it to line up this well. It lines up almost perfectly," Gibson said.

Her conclusion: "Yeah, I am positive."

New insight into Babe Ruth

Glenn now believes Ruth played on multiple youth teams.

"I have discovered him playing on the Newsies and the Bayonne, and then now the photo. Really, those two previous things boost up the Cherryvale photo because it shows that he did play out in Baltimore away from St. Mary's," Glenn said.

This might just be a new chapter in the story of a boy who became baseball’s greatest legacy.