I heard that when Ruth played balls that hooked foul after passing inside the foul pole were counted as foul balls. He would have had a lot more HRs.
that's correct. I believe it was 1931 or 1932 when the rule was changed.
other oddities regarding home runs:
- until 1931, what we now call a ground-rule double was a home run
- until the mid-1920s, what we now call a walk-off HR was recorded as a single, double, or triple if there was a player (or players) on base. The hitter was awarded what was considered sufficient to score the winning run by the base runner