of babe ruth's parents and i called one of his granddaughters and she said, they were not separated, they were divorced. all i had to do was go into the maryland state archives and type georgermann ruth senior v. katie ruth, and there popped up the entire dossier of their divorce, including arrests records, graphic testimony and depositions, george ruth the worst possible terms. he says, she is lousy and the kids are lousy. it is not surprising that once she was out of the way that he just sort of cast his son aside. what i keep going back to, as a writer and a mother, is what must it have felt like to be seven years old and unwanted? only two of their children left and they still did not want him. they sent him to this institution, which probably saved his life in a lot of ways, it was not warm and fuzzy. he lived in overcrowded dorms, each floor was supposed to accommodate 90 kids and instead there was maybe 130. they slept on wrought-iron cots arranged in rows, and there was just enough room between them for a bent-wood chair and nothing personal. it's not like anybody had a teddy bear. what he learned was how to be public. brian: we are out of time, but before somebody