Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong seems to have gone all-in for the bizarre conspiracy theory that Baseball legend Babe Ruth is a storybook character and never existed in real life.
The player known as PCA divulged the strange theory while appearing on Kristin Cavallari’s Let’s Be Honest podcast, according to the New York Post.
“This is gonna be crazy,” he admitted as he launched into the topic. “Babe Ruth never existed is one that I like. I heard some pitcher with the Mariners … I think he did some podcast on Zoom where he was going down the rabbit hole with somebody about how Babe Ruth never existed.”
He went on to insist that, “We always talk about how the game is evolving; people might as well have been like underhanding the ball to that guy. And he’s regarded still as one of the best players ever. Might as well dive further into it and be like, well, maybe he just never existed.”
PCA referenced a claim made by one-time Mariners pitcher Tayler Saucedo, who once said that he’d only ever seen one video of Ruth, so he didn’t think the famed player ever really existed.
There is indeed very little film footage of Ruth, who retired from baseball in 1935. But film was far less common of current events and media figures until the 1940s and 50s and later, so the lack of film footage is not at all unusual for news figures of his era.
Still, Ruth’s life and career were well documented by the newspapers of the times, and there are even people still alive today who could have seen him play.
Still, PCA may have been commenting more on Ruth’s legendary sports achievements than his actual existence