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Visiting Granddaughter Touches Base With Ruth's Old Haunts

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By STEVE KORNACKI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 23, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Linda Ruth Tosetti felt something strong when she walked into the Babe Ruth Lounge at the Flori-de-Leon Apartments.

"My eyes filled up with tears in that room," says the granddaughter of baseball's most-storied slugger.

"You get the feeling that you are stepping back in time in that building. I really got that feeling in the elevator."

Tosetti, 53, never met her grandfather. He died seven years before her birth to Dorothy Ruth Pirone, his love child born to Juanita Jennings Ellias, a San Francisco socialite and granddaughter of Mexico President Francisco Madero.

Yet, Tosetti says she feels so close to Ruth, she often looks to the heavens and speaks to him when she needs help or encouragement.

"People look at my face and see we are direct descendants," she says. "It's a Ruthian face. And baseball people I've met who knew him say we have the same laugh."

Her mother, who wrote a book, "My Dad, the Babe," passed along lots of stories, she says. Like Mom, who died 17 years ago, Tosetti roots for the Boston Red Sox, her grandfather's first team.

"Babe and Lou Gehrig were apples and oranges," says Tosetti of her grandfather's New York Yankees teammate. "Babe ran around town all night, and Lou was in by 10 each night, a mama's boy. But Grandfather liked Lou and went to dinner all the time with Ma Gehrig on the farm where they lived. My mother said she would watch Lou Gehrig shave as a girl and had a big crush on him."

Tosetti lives in Durham, Conn., with her husband of 28 years, Andy. They recently toured the Flori-de-Leon and some of Ruth's favorite local spots, such as the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City, with author Bill Jenkinson ("The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs") and Tim Reid of the St. Petersburg Committee to Commemorate Babe Ruth.

"The people at the Flori-de-Leon were wonderful, warm and excited to have us visit," she says. "They want Andy and me to stay there sometime because they said we are fun people."

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