The Toronto Blue Jays honoured Babe Ruth, the greatest slugger in baseball history, then watched his beloved New York Yankees emulate him.

Tom Stevens, Ruth's grandson, threw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to Tuesday's 6-3 loss to the visiting Yankees at the Rogers Centre. 

Babe Ruth's 714 homers stood as the record until Henry Aaron hit 755.
(Tom Sande/Associated Press)

Jorge Posada, Bobby Abreu and Hideki Matsui belted Ruthian home runs in the win, which officially eliminated Toronto from the division pennant race.

Stevens also unveiled a pair of historical plaques at the Toronto Islands, where Ruth swatted the first professional home run of his fabled career.

Ruth, then a 19-year-old pitcher, homered at Toronto's Hanlan's Point for the Providence Grays in a minor-league game against the hometown Maple Leafs on Sept. 5, 1914.

Ruth was used as a pitcher by the Boston Red Sox before being sold to the rival Yankees on Jan. 3, 1920, only to blossom into the game's greatest slugger. 

Ruth played 22 major-league seasons and re-wrote the record books before retiring at age 40 on May 30, 1935.

Nicknamed the Bambino, he batted .342 lifetime with 714 home runs, 2,217 runs batted in, 2,175 runs scored and 2,062 walks in 2,503 games for the Red Sox, Yankees and Boston Braves. 

Ruth was an accomplished pitcher too, posting a 94-46 record with a 2.28 earned-run average, 107 complete games, 17 shutouts and four saves in 163 appearances, including 148 starts.

But as a slugger, he had no peer. 

Ruth led all American League hitters in: slugging percentage 13 times; home runs 12 times; on-base percentage 10 times; walks 11 times; runs scored eight times; extra-base hits seven times; and runs batted in six times.

He also played in 10 World Series, winning seven.

Ruth was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, its first year of operation, and died Aug. 16, 1948 in New York.

With files from the Canadian Press