North Carolina Farm Bureau Magazine
NORTH CAROLINA FIRST
First in Flight may be North Carolina's claim to fame, but it's certainly not the state's only first.
From the days of Virginia Dare's birth, the first English child born in America, North Carolina started putting itself on the map as a pioneering state in almost every way imaginable. From America's first gold rush to the first Pepsi, North Carolina is proud to be home to many historical events, places and people. Some of them are better known than others.
In 1914, baseball legend Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run in Fayetteville. Though the notability of it has been questioned because the home run didn't take place during a sanctioned game, the fact remains that baseball fans present on that March day watched the Babe face a field of professional players and smack that ball out of the park. "In that game, Ruth hit his home run. Now, you have to imagine that it was a lot harder to hit a home run in 1914 than it is now, so it was a pretty big deal," says Jim Sumner, a Raleighbased sports historian. "The home run's significance was overstated. It was real, but it wasn't in a formal game. True, though, Ruth was there for three weeks and played really well. He beat a lot of players that have gone on to be hall-of-famers, and he played as a teen against grown men. He proved that he could play as a professional while he was in North Carolina."
The complete article and many more features in this month's North Carolina Farm Bureau Magazine.