On July 12, 1914, George Herman “Babe” Ruth played his first Major League baseball game.

Sports Illustrated points out 99 (because this was written last year) facts about Ruth, including …

9. The [International League’s Baltimore] Orioles sold Ruth to the Boston Red Sox on July 9, 1914 along with two other players as part of a fire sale by team owner Jack Dunn, who found himself in financial straits when the presence of a Baltimore franchise in the new Federal League obliterated the Orioles’ attendance. …

14. Ruth was a sidearming power pitcher who made 127 appearances on the mound before appearing at any other position in the field.

15. In Ken Burns’ documentary Baseball, noted journalist and author Dan Okrent said Ruth was “the best lefthanded pitcher of the 1910s, without question, in the American League.” Indeed, among AL lefties with at least 1,000 IP in the decade, Ruth had the lowest ERA (2.19) and highest winning percentage (.659) while ranking fourth in wins, tied for fourth in shutouts and ninth in strikeouts. …

18. In six seasons with Ruth, the Red Sox won three World Series titles. In 107 seasons without him they have won four [actually five, including 2013]. …

22. On June 23, 1917 at Fenway Park, Ruth was ejected by home plate umpire Brick Owens for arguing balls and strikes after walking the first batter of a game against the Senators. Ernie Shore replaced him. The baserunner, Senators second baseman Ray Morgan, was caught stealing, and Shore then retired all 26 men he faced in a 4-0 Red Sox win. Officially, Ruth is credited for participating in a combined no-hitter, but Shore is not credited with pitching a perfect game.

23. Ruth’s first major league home run came against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds on May 6, 1915. Exactly three years later, in the same ballpark, Ruth hit a home run in his first start at a position (1B) other than pitcher.

24. Soon after that first appearance as a position player, Ruth began to refuse to pitch, leading to tension with Red Sox manager Ed Barrow. In early July, Ruth attempted to leave the team and join a shipyard team in Chester, Pa., to avoid a fine from Barrow. Ruth quickly caved to the threat of legal action by Red Sox owner Harry Frazee and rejoined the Red Sox without playing for the shipyard team. …

26. Ruth is the only player since the turn of the 20^th century to lead his league in Triple Crown categories as both a hitter and a pitcher and he did it in the span of three years.

27. Ruth held out in spring training in 1919, ultimately landing a three-year contract worth $10,000. He threatened a hold out again after the 1919 season, saying he was worth twice the salary he had agreed to before that season. Frazee, still in debt from his purchase of the Red Sox three years earlier, responded by selling Ruth to the Yankees on Jan. 3, 1920, for $100,000 and a $300,000 loan secured by a mortgage on Fenway Park. …

30. Ruth was one of 17 players Frazee traded or sold to the Yankees between December 1918 and July 1923, when he finally sold the team. On New York’s first World Series title team of 1923, half the regular players and six of the seven pitchers to throw more than a dozen innings were acquired from Frazee. …

43. The Yankees had never been to the World Series before acquiring Ruth from Boston, but they went to seven World Series in his 15 years with the team, winning four of them. Their first pennant came in 1921. Their first championship came in 1923 in the third of three consecutive World Series confrontations with John McGraw’s New York Giants. …

48. After losing a ball in the sun in the Polo Grounds’ leftfield on July 16, 1922, Ruth refused to ever play the sun field again, and he didn’t. His position thereafter was determined by the geographic orientation of the ballpark in which he was playing. For the rest of his career, Ruth played exclusively in rightfield at the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium, as well as in Washington and Cleveland [where right field was in the southwest corner of the diamond; home plate was in the northwest or west corner of the diamond, similar to both Milwaukee County Stadium and Miller Park] but exclusively in leftfield at the other AL cities (Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and St. Louis) [where home plate was in the southwest corner of the diamond]. …

81. Ruth retired as the career record-holder in home runs, RBIs, total bases, walks, strikeouts, on-base percentage and slugging percentage as well as the single-season record-holder in home runs, total bases, walks and slugging, and he was briefly the single-season record-holder in RBIs during his career. …

88. Ruth’s career OPS of 1.164 remains the record, as does his career OPS+ of 206. The latter stat adjusts OPS for a player’s home ballpark and compares it to his league with 100 being league average. Ruth’s career OPS+ is thus more than twice as good as an average mark. By way of comparison, the last player to have a single-season OPS or OPS+ higher than Ruth’s career was Barry Bonds in 2004.