38. Babe Ruth

We suspect that you won't have seen the majority of the images on this list before. This one, however, is likely to be an exception. It's one of the most famous sporting photographs of all time, capturing the legendary baseball player Babe Ruth saying his final goodbye to the Yankee Stadium where he spent almost all of his playing career. A cancer-stricken Ruth is frail and gaunt, having to use a baseball bat as a makeshift cane in order to stand, but still bows respectfully toward 'Ruthville.' The image won photographer Nat Fein the Pulitzer Prize.

Astonishingly, none of Ruth's doctors had the courage to tell him that he was suffering from cancer; he was left to figure it out for himself. Shortly after this image was taken, no longer able to support himself, he entered Memorial Hospital, where he died on August 16th, 1948. This photo was taken barely two months earlier.

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