--- title: Babe Ruth Retires: The Disappointing Reason He Left Baseball description: The Great Bambino announced his retirement on June 2, 1935 canonical: https://time.com/3896371/babe-ruth-1935-retirement/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-02T11:00:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:59:09.055Z article:section: History og:title: Babe Ruth Retires: The Disappointing Reason He Left Baseball og:description: The Great Bambino announced his retirement on June 2, 1935 og:url: https://time.com/3896371/babe-ruth-1935-retirement/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebc452878d6781ed/6988519d8e060130a1460a7d/ruth.jpeg?branch=production&width=598&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 598 og:image:height: 336 og:image:alt: Babe Ruth og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Babe Ruth Retires: The Disappointing Reason He Left Baseball twitter:description: The Great Bambino announced his retirement on June 2, 1935 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebc452878d6781ed/6988519d8e060130a1460a7d/ruth.jpeg?branch=production&width=598&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Disappointing Reason Babe Ruth Left Baseball > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The Long and Winding Road to Paying College Players [Watch (HLS stream): The Long and Winding Road to Paying College Players](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aHlzfYUV.m3u8) (3:33)  _Published 2014-10-06. The man who helped win free agency for NFL and NBA players is seeking the same for college athletes_  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 2, 2015 11:00 AM UTC  Babe Ruth wearing his New York Yankees uniform and cap, circa 1935 Babe Ruth wearing his New York Yankees uniform and cap, circa 1935 Hulton Archive / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jun 2, 2015 11:00 AM UTC Every baseball fan—[well, except for that kid from _The Sandlot_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H52N9ojcJAY)—knows that Babe Ruth was one of the sport’s all-time greats. But at a time when beloved players embark on season-long [farewell tours](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/derek-jeter-the-longest-goodbye-20140924) to mark their departure from the sport, Ruth’s retirement—exactly 80 years ago, on June 2, 1935—came not with a great bang-bino, but rather with a whimper. Shortly before that year’s season began, Ruth had accepted an [offer](http://time.com/vault/issue/1935-03-11/page/44) from the Boston Braves to leave the New York Yankees. In addition to playing for Boston, Ruth would serve as a vice president and assistant manager of the organization, and would also take home a percentage of profits on top of a $25,000 salary. But things quickly soured once Ruth arrived in Beantown. On June 2, about half-way through the season, he announced that he was done for good. As TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1935-06-10/page/38) the following week: --- > “” --- Ruth never again played professional baseball. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] Right now, the NCAA rules prohibit the schools from doing anything to compensate the athletes for generating the hundreds of millions of dollars that they help generate for basketball and football and. In the United States. Traditionally there was a social contract between student athletes, the schools and the NCAA. Where talented student athletes would get scholarships but forego any compensation for their participation in athletics because primarily they were student athletes. The reality is that the athletes who play for a big Division I team are required to spend 60, 70 hours a week devoted to generating new revenues which they generate. When you talk about being paid, and what type of payment. Straight payment on salary basis, and then the question is who gets compensated. Is it the revenue generating sports or the non- revenue generating sports as well. If there will be some compensation for student athletes, here are the ways that. could happen. One would be a straight pay for play. Pay for play essentially means that you get student athletes on your campus no longer other students per se, but they are employees and you're paying them a salary to participate for the school. The problems are several fold, as an employee, potentially they could be terminated at any time. That concept, destroys the model and relationship between sports and, and education. Another way would be some sort of revenue sharing. It's only fair if the NCAA and. And the video game makers are able to really capitalize from exploiting a particular player or a group of player's likenesses, that those players should share in some way, shape or form in that largesse. To be able to maybe take monies and place it in trust. And it can be accessed by student athletes who graduate. And of course they can keep the scholarship system as it is. With no other major changes. What they're getting is the cost of a prime education for free, and they're getting an opportunity to train themselves for a career after sports and college. [ MUSIC ] I believe what has been advocated, was simply to say, players should have the right. To negotiation their own kinds of agreements and let the market decide their relative value. It's the same rules that apply to every business in this country. Free competition and markets decide the best solutions. When we introduce competition. Into professional sports for players. What happened? The product got better. Competition got more exciting. All too often now I go to camps and I speak to young people and, you know, their mantra is, I've got to get paid, and you have to be careful with that. The words free market. Cartel, those things are buzz words aimed at generating some sort of emotional response but when you really take a look at their application to college sports ultimately your looking at factors that could destroy college sports as we know it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3896371/babe-ruth-1935-retirement/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3896371/babe-ruth-1935-retirement/"},"headline":"The Disappointing Reason Babe Ruth Left Baseball","datePublished":"2015-06-02T11:00:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:59:09.055Z","description":"The Great Bambino announced his retirement on June 2, 1935","url":"https://time.com/3896371/babe-ruth-1935-retirement/","keywords":["Baseball"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebc452878d6781ed/6988519d8e060130a1460a7d/ruth.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebc452878d6781ed/6988519d8e060130a1460a7d/ruth.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Babe Ruth","caption":"Babe","creditText":"Hulton Archive / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/baseball/","name":"Baseball"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3896371/babe-ruth-1935-retirement/","name":"The Disappointing Reason Babe Ruth Left Baseball"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Long and Winding Road to Paying College Players","description":"The man who helped win free agency for NFL and NBA players is seeking the same for college athletes","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/aHlzfYUV/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-10-06T16:37:37.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aHlzfYUV.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3896371/babe-ruth-1935-retirement/","duration":"PT3M33S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3896371/babe-ruth-1935-retirement/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```