Heading Home

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Heading Home (also called Headin' Home) is a 1920 silent film which attempts to create a mythology surrounding the life of baseball player Babe Ruth.

Ruth stars in the film, playing himself, but the details of his life are completely fictionalized. In the film, Ruth comes from a small country town and has a loving home life, but in real life, he grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and spent most of his childhood in a reformatory [1]. In the film, shades of the baseball movie The Natural, Ruth cuts down a tree to make his own bat.

Filming of the movie occurred during the baseball season of 1920, with Ruth driving across the Hudson River to Haverstraw, New York, for filming in the mornings, then back across the river to play his games in the afternoons. The film includes some footage of his play during the season.

The screenplay was by Arthur "Bugs" Baer from a story by Earle Browne. Besides Ruth, it stars Ruth Taylor, William Sheer and Margaret Seddon.