Stroke survivor on a mission to preserve Bambino’s legacy

BALTIMORE — A couple of dozen well-wishers gathered in front of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum on this balmy Baltimore Saturday morning to give local triathlete and recovering stroke victim Chris Conlon and his biking team a royal sendoff. They embarked on a more than 300-mile, five-day journey from Baltimore to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

A devoted Babe Ruth enthusiast who worked for 10 years as a volunteer at the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum, Conlon is on a mission to help turn the baseball field at the former St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys — where Babe Ruth learned to play the game — into a national park and historic landmark. Ruth attended St. Mary’s from 1902-14, from the time he was 7 years old until he was signed by the Minor League Baltimore Orioles at the age of 18 in ’14.

Conlon wants everyone to understand the significance of the time Ruth spent at St. Mary’s, as it pertains to his baseball career.

“This journey is a very unique way of tangibly linking the Babe Ruth Birthplace with the Baseball Hall of Fame,” said Michael Gibbons, executive director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum, adding, “It’s also a five-day celebration of the fact that Babe Ruth, the game’s greatest star, is a product of the blue-collar southwest Baltimore neighborhood of Pigtown, the place where he learned to play baseball.”

Gibbons presented Conlon with an early 1970s vintage commemorative coin, minted …

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