Ruth and Bush

This is a photograph of future President George H. W. Bush and Babe Ruth in 1948. 

The cancer-stricken Babe Ruth donated an original manuscript of his autobiography to Yale University. He presented the gift during an on-field ceremony at Yale Field, where he was greeted by the Bulldogs’ baseball team captain, George H.W. Bush.

I love this photograph. I love to imagine what these two men - the greatest baseball player in history and the war hero-turned Yale scholar - were thinking this day. What were their lives like? Did they have any idea that the lives of two historic men were intersecting that day? Did they have any idea how they would both be forever remembered by history?

Ruth would die months later from his cancer, though his legacy and records have stood the test of time.

Bush would go on to be President of the United States, and 70 years later, is still alive and kicking. 

It's photos like this that make me yearn for a time machine so I could go back to that moment and see all that a photograph does not allow you see or experience.