Ancestry.com has digitized U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925. Here is Babe Ruth’s application for a passport prior to his famous trip to Cuba in 1920. Note the affidavit (attesting to Ruth’s identity) signed by “Brother Paul,” one of the Xaverian Brothers who ran St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore.
(click to enlarge; the first half is from the previous application in the file)
(click to enlarge; the lower right-hand shows part of the next application in the file)
Tomorrow I’ll post some information on Negro Leaguers with passport applications—including photos.
UPDATE 5:48 p.m. I found this bit in Marshall Smelser’s The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography, on Ruth’s participation in the major league tour of Japan in 1934 (p. 481):
Before they left [for Japan] Babe Ruth discovered his true birthday. He thought he had been born on February 7, 1894, but his sister Mamie, helping to make up his passport application, found that the date was February 6, 1895 (it had been and still is entered that way in the Baltimore birth records). Ruth had received a passport for the unlucky Cuba caper of 1920 with an affidavit of birth sworn to by a Xaverian who accepted the wrong date. Claire, many years later, said Babe’s quick reaction to the truth was to say, “I can play a year longer.” Up to this time they had been celebrating his birthday with a party every February 7. They decided to keep it that way.
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