"I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run"
About this Quote
The intent is half joke, half confession. He’s winking at the flood of folklore that followed him - the hot-dogging slugger, the larger-than-life ego - while insisting his magic wasn’t mystical. It was procedural. In an era when athletes were already surrounded by clubhouse superstitions, lucky charms, and tabloid mythmaking, Ruth plants his feet in the mundane: I did the simple thing, every time.
The subtext is about control. A home run is the loudest, cleanest outcome in baseball, but getting there is built on failure, randomness, and weird bounces. Touching each base becomes a way to domesticate that chaos, to punctuate an uncontrollable moment with a sequence you can complete. It also signals respect for the game’s choreography: the celebratory lap is still a lap, not a victory strut that floats above the field.
In Ruth’s America, where celebrity was becoming mass-produced and sports heroes were turning into national symbols, that small ritual reads like a leash on myth. Even giants count to four.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Ruth, Babe. (2026, January 17). I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-only-one-superstition-i-made-sure-to-touch-30023/
Chicago Style
Ruth, Babe. "I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-only-one-superstition-i-made-sure-to-touch-30023/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I had only one superstition. I made sure to touch all the bases when I hit a home run." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-had-only-one-superstition-i-made-sure-to-touch-30023/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.




