I reached Michael Haupert in his car as he was driving home to Wisconsin from his annual trip to Cooperstown. My email in-box tells me the date was May 22, 2015. Tom Shieber, senior curator at the Hall of Fame, had told me Mike, a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, was the go-to guy on Babe Ruth, the Yankees, and the economic underpinnings of the Evil Empire.

Fifteen years earlier, on a previous research trip to Cooperstown, Mike had discovered a motherlode of Yankee financial data in unopened boxes in a climate-controlled storage room at the Hall of Fame, where they had languished since 1973 when a team employee offered them to the head librarian in advance of the renovation of Yankee Stadium. The boxes contained 24 years of accounting books and team ledgers from Jacob Ruppert’s tenure as owner. The current owner, George M. Steinbrenner III, had deemed them superfluous.

Mike, executive director of the Economic History Association, and beleaguered Cubs fan, quickly understood their value: they offered a peek inside the inner workings of the most successful professional sports team in American history, a heaping portion of the forbidden financial fruit that baseball ownership had managed so effectively to keep to themselves through decades of hegemony. The closely kept figures showed how much they made, and how little they spent on player salaries; how much they charged their players for use of the pinstriped uniforms and how much they paid private investigators to follow them out of uniform. They revealed how much Ruppert agreed to pay Red Sox owner Harry Frazee for Babe Ruth in December 1919—$100,000, not the $125,000 reported by the New York Times at the time of the sale—and how much they profited from the acquisition. That would be a whopping $12.6 million in net profits adjusted for inflation. Or $20 for each dollar they had invested in the Babe.

Mike had been dissecting the numbers ever since, creating with his economist’s regressions a transformative accounting of the economics of baseball. But he only had half the story. The owners’ side.

What he lacked, I had found a month earlier in a report put together by Ruth’s agent, the indefatigable Christy Walsh, the original “Jerry Maguire,” whose efforts on Ruth’s behalf and revolutionary plan for marketing and promoting him as an entertainer had long since been lost to history. “FINAL REPORT For Mr. GEORGE H. ‘BABE’ RUTH From CHRISTY WALSH 1921-1938.”

Sequestered in a faded lime green binder, in the home of Ruth’s granddaughter Linda Ruth Tosetti, the pages revealed every dime the Babe earned for barnstorming, vaudeville, endorsements, personal appearances, movies, and radio broadcasts arranged during 14 years of Christy Walsh Management. The total of $447,392.07—what Walsh called “by product money” equals $124,603,370 in 2016 dollars. The document was proof positive that my operating theory—and the basis for my book—was correct. Ruth and Walsh had created a financial template for every millionaire and multimillionaire celebrity athlete who succeeded him—in time and dollars. They had created a blueprint for how to be wealthy and famous in a new America.

But absent what Mike knew, I couldn’t establish the fiscal magnitude of “The Big Fella.” Couldn’t demonstrate how he began to rectify the imbalance of financial power between players and owners.

I reached Mike by phone that fine May day in his car somewhere outside Cleveland. We talked all the way through Indiana and into Chicago.

He got off the line only because he had to negotiate the traffic en route to Wrigley Field.

When he hung up, I knew for sure—and for the first time—that I could write the book I had set out to create. Needless to say, his chapter “Sale of the Century: The Yankees Bought Babe Ruth for Nothing” in this volume The Babe was the first I read and most enjoyed. He didn’t confess the deal he had made with the Hall of Fame until he came to visit me this summer: they had given him a microfilm copy of the Ruppert files in exchange for a promise that he would share the information with researchers like me. He had to talk to me.

“Yeah, but not across state lines,” Mike pointed out.

His discovery in the climate-controlled vault in Cooperstown—and my discovery of Mike—is an object lesson in writing history. What we think we know, we often don’t. What we think is certain, is not. What we think is the complete story hasn’t been written.

Within these pages, I found anecdotes I had not heard, details I lacked the space to include, stories I couldn’t get. Pete Palmer’s analytic assessment of Ruth’s greatness as a pitcher comes to mind. Robert Fitts’ account of Ruth’s triumphant tour of Japan in the fall of 1934, at the end of his tenure with the Yankees, includes this lovely, salient detail on the fascination with all things Bambino: “One old man brought a pair of high-powered binoculars, amusing himself and neighboring fans by focusing on the Bambino’s famous broad nose, making his nostrils fill the lens.”

Steve Smith’s account of “The Babe’s Final Personal Appearance” in Minneapolis in the summer of 1948, based on a story in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune that I hadn’t seen, touched me as much as the less detailed wire service story I relied on in my book.

In his last public appearance, carried on the radio, which was a figment of scientific imagination when Ruth was a Boston Red Sox rookie in 1914, he was interviewed by an 11-year-old boy named Johnny Ross, dubbed Minneapolis’s “biggest sports enthusiast.” Johnny was blind. Ruth, who would be dead two months later from nasopharyngeal cancer, could barely talk.

Johnny: How are you, Babe?

Babe: I don’t feel so good. I have a very bad throat and my head aches.

Johnny: Who’s your favorite ball team?

Babe: I think I’ll have to stick with the Yanks. They’ll win the American League pennant.

Johnny: I know they say the time you called your homer was your biggest thrill, but was it?

Babe: Johnny, I think the time I pitched 29 consecutives innings without giving up a run.

Johnny: Would you sooner pitch or play the outfield?

Babe: I’d like to be in there every day. That’s how much I like to play.

With that Johnny, who was sitting in the Babe’s lap, ran out of things to ask. Ruth put his arm around the boy and said, “I think both of us are out of words, Johnny.”

Spent, he canceled the remainder of his tour and went home, his place in the history books more secure than the life he still clung to.

History isn’t finite–at least not where Ruth is concerned. The Babe always has more to give. He still generates more interest, more material, and more astonishment than anyone else who ever played the game. And that may be the best definition of his greatness.

— August 21, 2019

JANE LEAVY is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: The Big Fella: Babe Ruth and the World He Created; The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood; and Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy. In 2019, The Big Fella earned her SABR’s Seymour Medal, presented annually to the best book of baseball history or biography. She was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and the PEN/ ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. A former staff writer for the Washington Post, she grew up on Long Island where she pitched briefly and poorly in little league for the Blue Jays of Roslyn Heights. She lives in Washington, DC and Truro, Massachusetts.

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George Herman Ruth did have other nicknames than Babe — “Jidge,” for instance, and was given some other monikers such as “The Sultan of Swat.”

But he was more widely known as Babe Ruth than by his real name.

He was far from the only player, before or since, known as Babe. A quick perusal finds these prior Babes:

• Babe Adams (1906-26)
• Babe Borton (1912-16)
• Babe Danzig (1909)
• Babe Doty (1890)
• Babe Towne (1906)

And Dan Sherman, who started in 1914 – the same year as Mr. Ruth – and also attracted the nickname Babe.

Some Babes who overlapped or followed, include:

• Babe Ellison (1916-20)
• Babe Pinelli (1918-27)
• Babe Twombly (1920-21)
• Ollie Klee (1925)
• Babe Herman (1926-45)
• Babe Ganzel (1927-28)
• Elliot Bigelow (1929)
• Babe Phelps (1931-42)
• Ed Linke (1933-38)
• Babe Dahlgren (1935-46)
• Babe Young (1936-48)
• Babe Barna (1937-43)
• Woody Davis (1938)
• Phil Marchildon (1940-50)
• Russ Meers (1941-47)
• Ed Butka (1943-44)
• Ed Klieman (1943-50)
• Babe Martin (1944-53)
• Del Wilber (1946-54)
• Mario Picone (1947-54)
• Babe Birrer (1955-58)
• Tex Nelson (1955-57)
• Phil Roof (1961-77)

It seems that around a half-century ago, the nickname Babe went out of fashion.

Baseball-Reference.com lists nine Negro Leagues players nicknamed Babe, as well as more than 40 minor leaguers and seven “other players and scouts.”

There were, of course, variants. Ted Williams was known as “The Kid.” There are more players with “Kid” as their nickname, or part of their nickname, than there are Babes.

BILL NOWLIN was elected as SABR’s Vice President in 2004 and re-elected for five more terms before stepping down in 2016, when he was elected as a Director. He has specialized in Red Sox research since he turned to writing and research in the late 1990s and has written, edited, or co-edited more than 75 books and more than 750 articles, many of which are Red Sox-related. He is one of three founders of Rounder Records, one of America’s most successful independent record labels. A member of the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, he has also traveled widely, visiting more than 125 countries to date, and has occasionally taught courses at Boston-area universities on “Baseball and Politics” and Sportswriting. He was the 2011 winner of the Bob Davids Award, SABR’s highest honor. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

The ultimate comparison of sluggers in baseball occurs when a player is linked to George Herman “Babe” Ruth. Ruth is arguably the greatest player to ever swing a bat. His nicknames include The Bambino, Sultan of Swat, Big Bam, Behemoth of Bust, Colossus of Clout, and Maharajah of Mash. There is an old saying in sabermetrical studies: If you conduct a sabermetrical analysis of the greatest players in baseball history and Babe Ruth does not come out at or near the top, something’s wrong with your study.

Besides his prowess at the plate, Ruth was a great pitcher. Had he spent his playing time only on the mound, he still might have been elected to the Hall of Fame. He never had a losing season. He had a .671 career winning percentage (94-46, which places him 12th in major-league history on the career list) and a lifetime earned-run average of 2.28. He led all American League hurlers in 1916 with a 1.75 mark in 40 starts, including nine shutouts, and completed 107 of 147 starts. Ruth’s World Series record was 3-0, with two complete games, a shutout, and a 0.87 ERA. He also set the pitching record of 29⅔ consecutive scoreless innings in the World Series – a record Ruth held for 43 seasons.1

Let’s concentrate on hitting, though. How dominant was The Babe with a bat in his hands? In 1918, the 23-year-old Ruth split time between mound duties (winning 13 of 20 decisions) and being a position player for the Boston Red Sox. He played 59 games in the outfield and 13 more at first base. In 317 at-bats, he clubbed 11 home runs to tie Tillie Walker for tops in the American League. Walker, an outfielder with the Philadelphia Athletics, needed 414 at-bats to get the same number. A year later Ruth smacked 29 homers to lead both leagues, setting a new record for home runs in a single season, breaking Ned Williamson’s 1884 record of 27. Second-most in 1919 was Gavvy Cravath, who hit 12 for the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1920, his first season with the New York Yankees, Ruth became the first batter in history to hit 30, 40, and then 50 home runs in a season, when he clouted 54 round-trippers. Second place that year in the American League was future Hall of Famer George Sisler (29); in the National League, the leader was Cy Williams (15).

What makes Ruth’s 1920 totals more impressive is the fact that he hit more home runs than every other team in the American League (meaning his 54 were more than the totals of each and every other AL team); Ruth also out-homered all but one National League squad. In his career, Ruth out-homered 90 teams, including four ties. Further, he single-handedly out-homered pairs of teams 18 times. Not too many players can claim to have out-homered an entire team, and the last time this was somewhat possible was during World War II, when the Chicago White Sox hit a paltry 33 home runs in 1943, 23 home runs in 1944, and 22 in 1945.2

Roger Connor was an infielder for the New York Giants and St. Louis Cardinals who played from 1880 to 1897. Connor hit 138 home runs in his career. Ruth had 108 total at the end of the 1920 campaign, and he had been an everyday player for only two seasons.

In the bottom of the eighth inning in a July 19, 1921, contest at Detroit’s Navin Field, Ruth sent a Bert Cole pitch over the fence at the deepest part of the ballpark. The historic shot officially measured a distance of 560 feet, giving Ruth his 36th home run of the season and the 139th of his career,3 passing Connor. Ruth, of course, continued to add to his home-run total. He hit 23 more round-trippers in 1921, setting a new season high of 59, breaking his own record of 54 set the season before. His career total continued to increase over the next 14 seasons, finally settling on 714 in 1935. That record stood until 1974, when Hank Aaron hit his 715th. Ruth had owned the career home-run record for 53 seasons.

Ruth led the majors in home runs 11 times. (In 1930 he hit 49 homers to lead the AL, but Chicago Cubs slugger Hack Wilson smacked 56 to lead both leagues.) In the first All-Star Game, in 1933, the 38-year-old Ruth hit the very first home run in the midsummer classic’s history.

Ruth was a consistent batter. He batted .343 with 271 home runs with none on base and .352 with 274 homers with men on (not in scoring position); with runners in scoring position, Ruth hit .351 with 146 home runs. He batted .315 in games in which he pitched. He slugged .698 at home and .682 away.

The Babe finished his career at the top of most offensive categories. In 2,503 games he posted a .342 batting average, 10th best in history. His career RBI mark of 2,214 stood for 40 years (also broken by Aaron). In 1922 he overtook Dan Brouthers for the highest career slugging percentage (.696). That number eventually settled to .690 (remember, Ruth played until 1935), but it still, almost 100 years later, leads all batters for a career level. Ruth’s single-season slugging mark of .847 held the top spot from 1920 until 2001, when Barry Bonds posted an .863 slugging percentage.

Using recent statistics, Ruth’s career numbers still show dominance. His lifetime Offensive Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is 154.3, a mark that has stood at the top since he surpassed Ty Cobb’s 151.2 career number in 1933. The Offensive WAR career list names the best of the best. After Ruth and Cobb come Barry Bonds (143.7), Willie Mays (136.8), and Hank Aaron (132.4. Rounding out the top 10 are Ted Williams (126.4), Stan Musial (124.8), Tris Speaker (124.2), Honus Wagner (123.3), and Rogers Hornsby (121.8). Regarding his contemporaries, Ruth led the majors in Offensive WAR in seven seasons, finished second five times, and made the the top 10 list in every season from 1918 to 1933.

The Bambino’s on-base percentage of .4739 ranks second all-time, behind Ted Williams’s .4817, which means that Ruth’s 1.1636 OPS is tops, and might be tops for a long time to come.4 Ruth did not have the luxury of being a designated hitter, a rule change adopted by the American League in 1973. He played every day, averaging 140 games per season from 1919 through 1933. Toss in 10 postseasons (all in the World Series) in which he averaged .326 and hit 15 home runs, and Ruth showed he could perform at the highest level anytime, against any opponent.

Beyond the statistics, can we scientifically measure how dominant Ruth was as a home-run hitter? In the October 1921 edition of Popular Science Monthly, researchers at Columbia University in New York City hooked up Ruth to apparatus after apparatus and “analyzed his brain, his eye, his ear, his muscles; studied how these worked together, reassembled him, and announced the exact reasons for his supremacy as a batter and a ballplayer.”5 This was after his phenomenal 1921 season. One test required Ruth to put a stylus in three holes on a triangular-shaped board in consecutive order. He did it 132 times in one minute. Another test required him to press a telegraph key when a light flashed. He responded more than 10 percent quicker than the average man. According to the article, “the tests revealed the fact that Ruth is 90 per cent efficient compared with a human average of 60 per cent. [Ruth’s] eyes are about 12 per cent faster than those of the average human being. [His] ears function at least 10 per cent faster than those of the ordinary man. [His] nerves are steadier than those of 499 out of 500 persons. In intelligence, as demonstrated by quickness and accuracy of understanding, he is approximately 10 per cent above normal.”6 The researchers used results from their tests to explain Ruth’s superiority. Then, in a surprise, they revealed that he could be even better than his 59-home-run self in 1921. Ruth evidently held his breath while hitting, and “for that reason, he is not getting the maximum force into his batting.”7 The report concluded that by “dissecting the ‘home run king’ [the researchers] discovered brain instead of bone, and showed how little mere luck, or even mere hitting strength, has to do with Ruth’s phenomenal record.”8

Some critics might say that Ruth never played at night, never played against African-Americans, never had to battle jet lag, etc. However, Ruth had a reputation for playing hard, both on the field and off it. He still had to hit the ball where they ain’t when he stepped into the batter’s box, no matter who the opponent was or what he had done the night before. And his success, far and away above those who played before him, with him, and after him, is why we define baseball dominance as Ruthian.

MIKE HUBER is a Professor of Mathematics at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He enjoys researching and writing about rare events in baseball, and he joined SABR in 1996 after teaching his first sabermetrics course, which included many discussions about the dominance of Babe Ruth.

 

Sources

In addition to the sources mentioned in the Notes, the author consulted baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org.

“I saw it all happen, from beginning to end. But sometimes I still can’t believe what I saw. This 19-year-old kid, crude, poorly educated, only lightly brushed by the social veneer we call civilization, gradually transformed into the idol of American youth and the symbol of baseball the world over – a man loved by more people and with an intensity of feeling that perhaps has never been equaled before or since.” — Harry Hooper, Babe Ruth’s Red Sox teammate1

 

Hercules Meets Hot Springs

Babe Ruth first arrived in Hot Springs, Arkansas, on March 6, 1915, a rookie pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. As was their custom, the Red Sox lodged at the Majestic Hotel, one of the town’s preeminent spa hotels. Babe was immediately smitten with Hot Springs, then regarded as “the Mecca of professional base ball players.”2 It was the most exotic place he had ever seen. The warm baths, mountain vistas, golf courses, horse races, and attractive women seemed like a dream. Until 1914, his world had been mostly limited to the waterfront streets of Baltimore or the inside of St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys.3

Twenty-year-old Babe Ruth was an unstoppable force of nature. The 6-foot-2-inch, rock-hard, 200-pound juggernaut hit the ball harder, pitched better, hiked with more stamina, and ate more food than anyone in town. Pitching in an intrasquad game on March 23, 1915, Ruth belted a savage line-drive home run to right-center field that left witnesses in disbelief. Despite Boston’s talent-laden pitching staff, Ruth earned a place in their starting rotation, eventually winning 18 games as a rookie.4

The Red Sox returned to Hot Springs in 1916 and 1917, and Babe Ruth kept getting better. He won 23 games and led the league with a spectacular 1.75 ERA in 1916. The next year he led the majors with 35 complete games, posting a stellar 2.01 ERA. Over the course of those two seasons, the southpaw from Baltimore amassed an imposing total of 650 innings pitched. During those first three years (1915-1917), he also belted nine home runs. Everyone knew Babe could hit, but his greatness as a pitcher virtually assured that he remained on the mound. But then, larger events intervened.5

With the Great War raging in Europe, many big-league players joined the conflict. That included Red Sox player-manager Jack Barry. Accordingly, owner Harry Frazee signed former International League President Ed Barrow to take over as manager. Barrow was an intelligent, competent man, but he was also humorless and unimaginative. Barrow believed converting Babe Ruth to a position player in 1918 would have made him “the laughingstock of baseball.”6

The Wizard of Whittington

“Every ball player in the park said it was the longest drive they had ever seen … soaring over the street and a wide duck pond, finally finding a resting place in the Ozark Hills.” — Edward Martin, Boston Globe7

“Before the echo of the crash had died away the horsehide had dropped somewhere in the vicinity of South Hot Springs. … The sphere cleared the fence by about 200 feet and dropped in the pond beside the Alligator Farm, while the spectators yelled with amazement. …” — Paul Shannon, Boston Post8

Babe left Boston by train for Arkansas on March 9, 1918. He was in peak physical condition after spending the winter with his wife in a remote cottage in rural Sudbury, Massachusetts. He chopped wood all winter, and vigorously engaged in various winter sports and activities.9

During his first week of practice in Hot Springs, Ed Barrow worked all his pitchers hard, making them hike over mountains, shag fly balls, and take infield practice. Barrow had already decided that big-league teams carried too many pitchers, and he wanted his hurlers in optimum shape to handle the increased workload. Yet, in those early stages, Ruth had looked comfortable at first base, and, as usual, had clubbed several batting-practice homers.10

So when regular first baseman Dick Hoblitzell was not ready to play in the opening exhibition game, Barrow inserted the 23-year-old Bambino into his position. The game was played at Whittington Park on March 17 against the Brooklyn Dodgers (aka Robins). It was the first time Ruth ever played against a major-league team in any position other than pitcher.11

Batting in the fourth inning, Babe lined a mammoth shot to deep left-center field that landed in a distant woodpile, enabling Ruth to easily circle the bases. Two innings later, Babe did even better. This time he unloaded a drive to right-center field that passed so far over the fence that it landed across the street in the Arkansas Alligator Farm, a well-known tourist attraction. The blow was so amazing that even the Dodgers stood up and cheered. None of them had ever seen anybody hit a baseball with such astonishing force. It was surely the longest home run ever hit, and may even have been the first to land over 500 feet on the fly.12

Six days later, on March 23, Babe wowed the crowd at the newly built Army training center, Camp Pike, in North Little Rock, launching out five home runs in a batting exhibition. The troops loved him.13

Word of these remarkable events quickly circulated around the baseball community, and everyone wondered if they would ever be reprised. The very next day, Saturday, March 24, the Red Sox again faced the Dodgers at Whittington Park. Barrow started Carl Mays on the mound but had to use Babe Ruth in right field due to the ongoing manpower shortage. Again, Ruth was in the field more due to chance than actual design, and, again, he took advantage.14

In the third inning, he smashed another tremendous home run to right-center field, a grand slam that cleared a pond just to the right of the same Alligator Farm. Stunning the crowd, Babe had launched this drive even farther than the second St. Patrick’s Day blast. Without question, it flew well over 500 feet.15

Polo Grounds Potentate

“Babe Ruth could hit a ball so hard, and so far, that it was sometimes impossible to believe your eyes. We used to absolutely marvel at his hits. Tremendous wallops. You can’t imagine the balls he hit.” — Opposing pitcher and teammate Sad Sam Jones16

Despite his inconceivable display of slugging power in Hot Springs, when the regular season opened at Fenway Park on April 15, Babe was the starting pitcher, hurling a masterful four-hitter against the Athletics. Three weeks later, though, he swatted two jaw-dropping home runs against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds, one on May 4, one on May 6. Before hitting the first, he hit a rocket-shot foul into the right-field upper deck. Additionally, Babe slammed three homer-length fouls during that same game, as well as a 440-foot double to the exit gate in deep right-center.17

Baseball writer and historian Fred Lieb described Ruth’s phenomenal power and intimidating impact in this way:

“[Despite the] soggy, lifeless ball of 1918 [Ruth] chilled [the] blood of pitchers … rocket[ing] home runs out of stadiums [and, on May 8] going 5 for 5, with three doubles and a triple.”18

Babe’s superhuman performances in New York left an indelible impression on fans, press, and, perhaps most important of all, Yankees co-owner Jacob Ruppert, who witnessed it from his owner’s box, usually, if not always, with Harry Frazee sitting by his side. Ruppert offered to buy Ruth from the Red Sox in 1918, but Frazee refused. It took a drastic change of financial circumstances for Frazee, Ruppert’s deep pockets, and the help of Yankees co-owner Cap Huston before Frazee agreed to sell Ruth, and other Red Sox stars to the Yankees, in what infamously became reviled in Boston as the “Rape of the Red Sox.”19

New York fans were in awe of Ruth. As Paul Shannon of the Boston Post reported, Ruth was “the hitting idol of the Polo Grounds.” As sensational a pitcher as Babe was for the Red Sox, it was his breathtaking shows of unimaginable slugging against the Yankees that resulted in his becoming a Yankee himself. The die was cast.20

The Great, Powerful, and Beloved Babe Ruth

“Every so often some superman appears who follows no set rule, who flouts accepted theories, who throws science itself to the winds and hews out a rough path for himself by the sheer weight of his own unequaled talents. Such a man is Babe Ruth in the batting world and his influence on the whole system of batting employed in the major leagues is clear as crystal.” — Baseball writer F.C. Lane21

“Don’t tell me about Ruth. I’ve seen what he did to people; fans driving miles in open wagons through the prairies of Oklahoma to see him in exhibition games as we headed north in the spring. Kids, men, women, worshippers all, hoping to get his name on a torn, dirty piece of paper, or hoping for a grunt of recognition when they said ‘Hi Ya, Babe.’ He never let them down, not once. He was the greatest crowd pleaser of them all.” — Babe’s Red Sox and Yankee teammate Waite Hoyt22

Those moonshots at Whittington Park in March of 1918 had initiated a series of occurrences nobody could control. Even “Simon Legree” Barrow was no match for the inevitability of Babe’s herculean power at the plate, nor for his popularity with the fans. So awesome was his slugging that Babe rarely appeared on a major-league mound again after his years with the Red Sox, pitching only five regular-season games during his 14 years with the Yankees, (1920-1934), the winning pitcher in every one.23

Babe basically gave up pitching after his years with Boston, but he did not give up Hot Springs.

He often returned for preseason conditioning and fun during the Roaring Twenties and beyond.

He took the baths, hiked the trails, bet the ponies, enjoyed the nightlife, and played a lot of golf.

What he did in regular seasons, however, is what made him the most famous and beloved sports figure in American history. He revolutionized the game of baseball with the unprecedented number and splendor of his home runs, a mind-boggling 659 of them with the Yankees.

Beginning in March of 1918 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Babe changed baseball forever.24

Special thanks and dedication to Steve Arrison, Creator of the Hot Springs Historic Baseball Trail.

 

Babe Ruth was drawn to Minnesota by baseball, but – as was the case with Ted Williams, who later challenged Ruth for the title of greatest hitter ever – the outdoors and nonbaseball opportunities in the state also attracted him.

After the World Series in 1921, Ruth and a pair of New York Yankees teammates, including Bob Meusel, went on a barnstorming tour. The excursion violated a prohibition on barnstorming by World Series participants and resulted in the players being suspended to start the 1922 season.

Restrictions on postseason touring were loosened, and, as the Yankees battled for the American League pennant again, Ruth planned another barnstorming trip that would bring him to Minnesota. One report had Ruth and Meusel, along with pitcher Joe Bush, coming to the central part of the state, from which Bush hailed. The trio discussed visiting the Brainerd Lakes area. (Bush was known in those parts as the Brainerd Meteor.) “If they can’t make the duck hunting, they will be here to get a deer or moose,” wrote the Brainerd Dispatch.1

That trip didn’t happen, but reports soon emerged that Ruth and Meusel would play in Minneapolis on Sunday, October 15, and then head the next day to Sleepy Eye, a city in the south-central part of the state. Plans changed on this itinerary, as well, but it was Minneapolis that was left out, not the smaller city. The 1922 World Series ended on Sunday, October 8 (the New York Giants knocked off the Yankees in five games), and Ruth and Meusel began a Western tour with a game in central Iowa the following Friday.2 Over the weekend, they played games in Lincoln3 and Omaha, Nebraska. Then they took off to keep their date in Sleepy Eye, even though the journey demanded that they detour from their next day’s destination, which was Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

How they settled on Sleepy Eye is still a mystery,4 but Ruth and Meusel arrived by train in nearby Mankato the morning of Monday, October 16. An auto took them to Sleepy Eye, and they stopped at the Berg Hotel, where a crowd had gathered. The Sleepy Eye band gave a concert at a downtown intersection at 1:00 P.M. and then marched to the ballpark, where additional bleachers had been built. They weren’t needed as the cold weather kept the attendance to under 1,000. Those who showed up got their money’s worth as Ruth hit two long home runs in the game,5 one a grand slam, as his squad beat Meusel’s team 9-7 in a game called after 5½ innings. Ruth finished the game on the mound, retiring all three batters he faced, two on strikeouts, in the top of the sixth.

The Knights of Columbus held a reception that evening at St. Mary’s School. Ruth said he hoped to include Sleepy Eye in his travels the next year6 before he and Meusel boarded a train to South Dakota and eventually to Denver, where their tour ended on October 29.7

Ruth never returned to Sleepy Eye, but he and Meusel went back in Minnesota two years later. At the same time, while the New York Yankees were wrapping up their 1924 season – with a second-place finish to Washington – the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association were closing out a disappointing season. The Millers’ rival, the St. Paul Saints, had won the pennant and were heading to the Little World Series, but a pair of Minneapolis boxing promoters were able to secure an appearance by Ruth at Nicollet Park, the Millers’ home.8 The date was set for October 14, and Meusel would be with Ruth again on a tour that would take them to the Pacific Coast.

Ruth played for the Odd Fellows, the city’s amateur champions, and knocked a pair of home runs that cleared Nicollet Avenue beyond the right-field fence. He added a pair of singles, outdoing Meusel, who was held hitless while playing for a local all-star team assembled as the Odd Fellows’ opponents.

The crowd was only around 3,000, but there were enough overenthusiastic young fans to stop the game in the eighth inning by coming onto the field and swarming Ruth. “Try as Babe did, he couldn’t get the kids off the field,” wrote Charles Johnson in the Minneapolis Star. “They became so thick that Ruth couldn’t get away. The kids didn’t want anything (in) particular. They just wanted to be close to him. He’s their idol. Babe grabbed the lone bat that the souvenir hunters left him and made a bee line for the gate with the kids after him.”9

Ruth’s appearances in Minnesota were to this point confined to postseason barnstorming, but the entire Yankees team came to St. Paul for a midseason exhibition game against the Saints at Lexington Park on June 16, 1926. Two years before, as part of his 1924 excursion, Ruth had planned to toss baseballs to fans from the Minneapolis Tribune building but canceled because of safety concerns.10 In St. Paul, however, Ruth went through with the event, signing and then hurling autographed baseballs out a window of the Pioneer Press and Dispatch building in downtown St. Paul to a huge crowd gathered on the street. He then went to Lexington Park and put on a show in batting practice. That is all the fans got, though, as the game itself was rained out. “Every one of us is not only sorry but sore because we didn’t get to play today,” said Ruth, who promised to return and make up the game at the end of the regular season.11

It wasn’t until the following season that the Yankees and Saints made up their rained-out game, but Ruth, by himself, came to Minnesota for a variety of nonbaseball activities in late October of 1926. Vaudeville was the main reason for his visit as large newspaper ads touted his appearances at the Pantages Theatre in downtown Minneapolis with such enticements as “See the Battering Bambino Unfold His Bag of Batting Tricks.”12

Ruth also purchased a nonresident hunting license on Saturday, October 31, with an invitation by the Minneapolis police chief to go duck hunting the next day and a plan to delay this excursion long enough to meet Queen Marie of Rumania at the Minneapolis Institute of Art as she made a nine-hour stopover in the Twin Cities.13 During his week in town, Ruth also worked in visits to the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children, the Catholic Boys’ Home, and a sanitarium for youngsters with tuberculosis at Glen Lake, just outside the Twin Cities. In addition, Ruth found time to work out with the Minnesota Gophers football team14 and also visit St. Mary’s Hospital to see Joe Boland, a player from Notre Dame who had broken his leg in a game against the Gophers three weeks earlier.15

The following summer the entire Yankees Murderers’ Row returned to St. Paul for an exhibition game. The Yankees beat the Saints, 9-8, on Wednesday, July 20, 1927. Although neither Ruth, who went on to set a single-season record with 60 home runs that season, nor Lou Gehrig, cleared the fence at Lexington Park, the pair “spilled nearly a quart of ink autographing baseballs and score cards for small boys” before the game, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.16

Nearly 15,000 fans enjoyed the show, although the crowd dropped by at least one when 42-year-old John Kulasivig dropped dead of a heart attack after reportedly yelling, “Hit it over the fence, Babe.”17

Ruth appreciated the hospitality he received during his visits to the state, and that played a role in his agreeing to interrupt his “first vacation in 21 years” in 1935. Ruth had retired as a player that spring. That summer, he agreed to play in the annual game of the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments. During his 1926 postseason vaudeville tour in Minneapolis, Police Chief Frank Brunskill had made Ruth an honorary member of the department.18

On Sunday, September 1, 1935, Ruth played half a game at Nicollet Park with the police teams. He only hit a double, but Minneapolis Tribune reporter Bob Beebe wrote, “[H]e gave the fans an idea of how he can sock a baseball by walloping a dozen or so out of the park in a batting exhibition that preceded the actual contest. One of them was a terrific clout that cleared the fence in deep left center with plenty to spare.”19

One of Ruth’s unfulfilled desires was managing. Unable to land a job as skipper in the major leagues, he decided to prove himself in the minors and told people he might like to manage the St. Paul Saints in 1941. He remained frustrated when the Saints instead hired Ralph “Red” Kress, who had been a popular figure in the area when he played for the Millers in 1937.20

Ruth always seemed to enjoy his travels to Minnesota, starting with that first trip in 1922.21 After playing in front of 700 fans on a cold day in Sleepy Eye, Ruth called those who turned out “the most loyal fans he had ever seen,” according to the local newspaper. “He said that in New York not ten people would attend a game in the face of such a cold, snowy day.”22

Randy Krzmarzick, a columnist and baseball historian in Sleepy Eye, has researched Ruth’s 1922 appearance there. “I think it’s likely the town did make an impression,” he said. “We’d like to think so.”23

Footnote

Ruth’s final trip to Minnesota was Tuesday night, June 22, 1948, one of his last public appearances. He had flown in from South Dakota on a national tour to promote junior baseball. Before a battery of microphones at the Radisson Hotel in Minneapolis, Ruth was interviewed by 11-year-old Johnny Ross, who had lost his eyesight a few years before. “How are you, Babe?” asked Johnny. “I don’t feel so good,” replied Ruth. “I have a very bad throat and my head aches.”24

Five years later, Ross played football and wrestled for Marshall High School in Minneapolis. In 1953 he was the state wrestling champion at 120 pounds.25

Ruth returned to New York on Wednesday and by the next day was in the hospital, where he spent most of the remaining six-and-a-half weeks of his life. According to Robert W. Creamer in Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, Ruth flew to Baltimore for a charity game, which was rained out. On July 26, he attended the premiere of The Babe Ruth Story. Ruth left early and returned to the hospital. He never left the hospital again. 26

STEW THORNLEY has been a SABR member since 1979 and has written or edited two books on the Polo Grounds.

 

Notes

1 “Bush, Ruth and Meusel May Come Here: Trio of Baseball Stars Enthused with Our Region: Plan Hunting in Brainerd Lake Region after the World’s Series,” Brainerd Dispatch, September 25, 1922: 1.

2 “Ruth and Meusel to Play at Perry on Friday, Oct. 13,” Des Moines Sunday Register, October 1, 1922: 2S. The first stop on a Western tour by Ruth and Meusel was in Perry, Iowa, northwest of Des Moines. Sec Taylor reported in the October 14, 1922, Des Moines Register that Ruth’s Perry team beat Pella (with Meusel) 12-3 with Meusel hitting a home run and Ruth two triples. Taylor wrote that the “cool weather, high wind and dust that blew across the field in clouds” kept the crowd to only 800 and that promoters lost money on the game.

3 The Lincoln Star of October 13, 1922 (page 9) has an ad for appearances by Meusel and Ruth at charitable institutions in Lincoln to distribute candy on National Candy Day and for a game at Landis Field in the afternoon.

4 The selection of Sleepy Eye as a stop has been a topic of research by local historians, including Randy Krzmarzick. An article in the October 10, 1922, Minneapolis Star (page 8) states that the ball game was staged by the local unit of the American Legion. Krzmarzick believes the Knights of Columbus (of which Ruth was a member) may also have been involved and that Ruth may have been attracted by the St. Mary’s School (the same name as the industrial school he attended in Baltimore). See foxsports.com/north/video/299603523964.

5 One of the home-run balls still exists, according to a Minneapolis television station report: kare11.com/article/news/local/land-of-10000-stories/babe-ruth-home-run-ball-turns-up-with-104-year-old-minnesotan/35072475. Eleven-year-old Len Youngman corralled one of Ruth’s home runs and years later gave it to his grandson. Youngman turned 107 on March 27, 2018.

6 “‘Babe’ Hits Two Homers in Game Here Monday,” Sleepy Eye Herald-Dispatch, October 19, 1922: 1.

7 Lincoln State Journal, Monday, October 30, 1922: 9.

8 “Babe Ruth to Play at Nicollet Park on October 14 or 15,” Minneapolis Star, October 1, 1924: 10.

9 Charles Johnson, “Kids Break Up Ruth’s Ball Game; Souvenir Hunters Have Big Day,” Minneapolis Star, October 15, 1924: 11. Other reports suggest that the game had already been called by darkness by the time the fans swarmed onto the field.

10 “Ruth Appears at Tribune Today; Ball Tossing Is Eliminated,” Minneapolis Tribune, October 14, 1924: 15.

11 “‘Babe’ Ruth Regretfully Leaves St. Paul, Promising to Return September 28 if Yankees Grab Pennant,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 17, 1926: 1. Ruth and the Yankees said they would come back if they won the pennant since their regular season would conclude September 26 while the National League season wasn’t scheduled to conclude for another three days.

12 “Babe Ruth ‘The Swat King’ Now Appearing at Pantages,” Minneapolis Tribune, October 31, 1926: Art Section, 7.

13 “Ruth, King of Swat, Delays Hunting to Greet Queen Marie,” October 30, 1926: 1.

14 “Babe Ruth Visits Boland, Injured Notre Dame Star,” Minneapolis Tribune, November 2, 1926: 21.

15 “Babe Ruth Works Out with Gophers; Tackles Joesting,” Minneapolis Journal, November 2, 1926: 26.

16 “Ruth, Gehrig Find Pen Mightier Than Bat to Thrill Boys Here,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 21, 1927: 1.

17 “Winona Man Drops Dead,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 21, 1927: 1.

18 “Babe Ruth to Take Part in Police Tilt at Nicollet,” Minneapolis Tribune, August 1, 1935: 16.

19 Bob Beebe, “13,000 Fans Watch Ruth in Police Game at Nicollet,” Minneapolis Tribune, September 2, 1935: 14.

20 “Ruth to Manage Saints???” St. Paul Pioneer Press, September 22, 1940: Second Section, 1.

21 How many times Ruth came to Minnesota is unclear. The Nanibijou Lodge in Grand Marais, Minnesota, on the north shore of Lake Superior about halfway between Duluth and the Canadian border, claims Ruth and celebrities Jack Dempsey and Ring Lardner as charter members of the lodge when it opened in 1929: naniboujou.com. There is no mention of any of these celebrities in the Cook Herald (the newspaper for Cook County, where Grand Marais is) in the late 1920s.

22 “‘Babe’ Hits Two Homers in Game Here Monday,” Sleepy Eye Herald-Dispatch, October 19, 1922: 1.

23 “Remembering Babe Ruth’s Visit Sleepy Eye, Minn.,” narrated by Tom Hanneman, Fox Sports North, July 8, 2014, foxsports.com/north/video/299603523964.

24 Joe Hendrickson, “Interview We Won’t Forget,” Minneapolis Tribune, June 23, 1948: 20.

25 Dan Stoneking, “Marshall-U,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis), May 28, 1982: 1D.

26 Robert W. Creamer, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974), 423-424.

 

Louisville, Kentucky, has a wide array of historical credentials on its baseball résumé: charter member of the National League; the infamous scandal of 1876; 10-year member of the major-league American Association, followed by eight more years in the National League; home of Pete Browning; birthplace of Hillerich & Bradsby Company’s Louisville Slugger bats; home of Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory; site of Honus Wagner’s rookie year; Eclipse Park, Parkway Field, Cardinal Stadium; home of Pee Wee Reese; the Colonels’ minor-league success in the American Association and IL; the million-fans Redbirds attendance record; current Louisville Bats; and Louisville Slugger Field, to list the highlights.

Add to that résumé the following credit: an age-old and ongoing love affair with Babe Ruth. In his lifetime he visited Louisville on at least five occasions for a variety of reasons: barnstorming money; loyalty to the Xaverian Brothers who raised him; presidential politics; golf with Bud Hillerich’s PowerBilt clubs; and raising money for storm relief. His presence in the city was always appreciated and respected by the locals.

A closer examination of those visits begins by looking back more than 100 years ago.

August 15, 1921
Louisville Colonels 3, New York Yankees 1

With much anticipation and great fanfare, the New York Yankees arrived by train at Louisville’s Union Station at 7:35 A.M., and Babe Ruth began a day of whirlwind activity.1 A former teacher at Baltimore’s St. Mary’s Industrial School, where Ruth was raised, was instrumental in arranging this visit by his now-famous pupil.

In 1917, Brother Benjamin Burke, C.F.X., a member of the Catholic religious order of teachers known as the Xaverian Brothers, had become principal of St. Xavier’s College (now St. Xavier High School) in Louisville.2 It appears that, with Ruth’s support, he worked for two years to persuade both leagues involved to reschedule games so that the Yankees could arrange a midseason visit.3 In 1925 Brother Ben, as Ruth called him, would return to Baltimore and become St. Mary’s superintendent, always maintaining a close friendship with Ruth.4

The local council of the Knights of Columbus, the international Catholic fraternal organization, quickly whisked Ruth and the Yankees away for a mini-tour of the city for the rest of the morning, followed by a stop at noon at the Louisville Industrial School, a residential placement for dependent, delinquent, and orphaned children.5 This facility was part of the local House of Refuge,6 a combination reformatory/orphanage that appears to have been similar to St. Mary’s. Dressed in a suit and tie, Ruth took part in a “pitching contest” and was struck out by Edward Miner, one of the young wards there.7

The 3:00 P.M. exhibition game at Eclipse Park between the Yankees and the Louisville Colonels featured two first-place ballclubs – the Yankees led the American League as the result of Cleveland’s loss to the White Sox the day before, and the Colonels owned a three-game lead over Minneapolis in the American Association.8

In conjunction with this event, the Hillerich & Bradsby Company purchased a newspaper advertisement titled “Babe Ruth’s Bat a Louisville Slugger,” noting that “Ruth’s bat is 36 inches long and weighs 47 ounces.” Accompanied by a photo of him, the ad copy read, “Like most Famous Sluggers of the national game, Ruth uses exclusively bats made by the Hillerich & Bradsby Co. He has found that Louisville SLUGGER bats have the spring, balance and driving power needed to slug them over the fence.”9

On a partly cloudy day with a high of 78 degrees, Louisvillians jammed Eclipse Park for the event. Reserved seats had been sold out for days; temporary stands had been put up to seat the overflow patrons; and more people were allowed to stand in a roped area in the deep outfield, just behind the outfielders. Eventually, 12,081 fans were counted in attendance in a ballpark that had 7,500 seating capacity, with virtually every man wearing a straw bowler and dark suit, in the style of the day.10 Before the game, Colonels player-manager Joe McCarthy – the same future Hall of Famer who would deftly manage the Bronx Bombers from 1931 to 1946 – accepted a silver loving cup from a local sporting-goods company.11 It is likely that this is the first time that Ruth laid eyes on the so-called “bush-leaguer” who would become his manager in a mere 10 years.

As for the game itself, the two teams engaged in an underwhelming struggle, with the Colonels faithful exulting in a 3-1 victory. The news headlines captured much of the story: “Colonels Triumph Over Yankees Before Record Crowd” and “Babe Ruth Fails to Hit in Four Times Up; Strikes Out Twice.”12

For the Colonels, left fielder Roy Massey was the batting hero, going 2-for-4 with three RBIs, while catcher Fred Hofmann scored the only run for the Yankees in the ninth on a double followed by an error.13 Outfielder Ruth played first base, and many of the New York regulars were given the day off, as second-stringers dominated the lineup.14

Although Kentucky native Carl Mays had been expected to pitch for the visitors, he did not play.15 Colonels pitchers Ernie Koob, Tommy Estell, and Tommy “The Windmill” Long held their opponents to only three hits, with Long striking out Ruth to end the game.16 Ruth swung at all three pitches in an attempt to propel another ball out of the park as he had already done 44 times against AL pitching.17

After the game, which lasted only 1 hour and 22 minutes, Ruth had no time to rest. At 6:30 P.M. he appeared at St. Xavier’s Park in a contest at which all boys under 16 years old were invited. Ruth, himself a member of the Knights of Columbus, took 24 baseballs autographed by the grand knight of the local council and batted them into the assembled group of lads who scrambled for the valued souvenirs. To continue his day of frenetic activity, he was honored at an evening dinner that the Knights sponsored.

At the conclusion of dinner, Brother Benjamin and the Knights accompanied the major leaguers to the train station, and the Yankees traveled 115 miles north to Indianapolis for an exhibition the next day. Meanwhile, the Colonels departed for Milwaukee and an exhausting 31-day stint on the road.

In the following days, a number of letters to the editor appeared in the newspaper. One angry fan commented, “It was a rotten game on the visitors’ side. … I did not want to pay out my money to see a big tub like Babe Ruth stand up to the plate and put up a stall like he did Monday, especially the last time at bat. I expect he thought everybody paid their money just to look at his big frame, but I did not for one. …”18 In response, another fan wrote, “… any baseball fan who was there knows that he saw a sure enough, hard fought baseball game, and not a one-sided contest by any means. This game was anybody’s until the last man was out in the ninth. … Messrs. Huston and Ruppert are willing to pay him fifty thousand dollars per year for displaying his ‘big frame.’”19 Finally, a Louisvillian concluded, “I confess I was disappointed with Monday’s game, but I thoroughly enjoyed the batting practice.”20

In a later accounting of the profits of the day, the Yankees received $4,436.15, the Colonels received $2,436.15 and St. Xavier’s was given $2,000.21

Season’s end saw the Yankees win the AL pennant but lose the World Series to the Giants. Ruth amassed astounding numbers, including 59 homers and a .378 batting average. “Brainy” Joe McCarthy’s Colonels, later described as “unquestionably one of the most powerful Louisville teams ever assembled,” won the American Association pennant and then shocked Jack Dunn’s dominant Baltimore Orioles by a margin of five games to three in the Junior World Series.22

June 2, 1924
Louisville Colonels 7, New York Yankees 6

Babe Ruth, now firmly established as the nation’s leading athlete-personality, led the defending world champions into town for their second Louisville appearance. Two days earlier, in the second game of a doubleheader, he had been knocked unconscious in a collision with Yankees second baseman Ernie Johnson. In typical Ruthian style, he recovered to homer later in the game.23

However, a native Kentuckian on the Yankees roster also attracted attention. Right fielder Earle Combs had graduated from Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College in 1921 and taught school until the Colonels signed the college slugger in 1922. After two stupendous years at the plate – batting .344 and .380 – the popular player known as the Kentucky Colonel was signed by the Yankees and had a superb start in his first season.24 A future Hall of Famer, Combs would spend 12 seasons with the New Yorkers, mainly as a leadoff center fielder.

Once again the city rolled out the red carpet for the major leaguers, but a different venue awaited the two teams. Eclipse Park, wooden home of the Colonels for 21 years, had been destroyed by fire in November 1922.25 The team’s new ballpark was Parkway Field, a concrete and steel structure built in only 63 days and opened on May 1, 1923. It would be the home venue until 1957.26

The first-place Yankees arrived from New York by train at 11:45 A.M. As Ruth alighted from the train dressed in a “somberly blue striped suit” for his official welcome, he encountered a group of Confederate veterans on their way to a reunion in Memphis. They cheered him, and a photograph memorialized their chance meeting. After a hurried shave and lunch, he was taken to the ballpark, accompanied by a parade of cars, for the 3:00 game.27

Similar to three years earlier, there was extraordinary fan interest in the game, with some people clinging to telephone poles for a view. Before the game a Knights of Columbus official delivered an armload of roses to Combs and a silver service to Ruth, who, in turn, gave prizes to six youngsters who had triumphed in a local track and field event. Although Ruth was unable to visit St. Xavier’s on this trip, the St. Xavier junior team players watched the game as special invitees.28

As for the game, the crowd of 9,986 received a daily double of excitement: The home team came from behind for a victory, and Ruth blasted a ninth-inning right-center-field homer that many believed to be the longest ball ever hit out of the ballpark.29 It landed in a gas station on the corner of Shipp and Eastern Parkway, well over 500 feet away.30 His other plate appearances resulted in a foul out to the catcher; a fielder’s choice; a single and a groundout. Earle Combs also went 2-for-5, including a double, to please the home folks. Colonels pitchers Ernie Koob and Tommy Estell continued their mastery of the visitors.

Ruth’s day was far from over when the game concluded after 1 hour and 28 minutes. First, he was off to the downtown Sutcliffe’s sporting goods store where he handed out yellow mini-bats to more than a thousand youngsters who had earned a free ticket to the game by enlisting a new subscriber to the daily Courier-Journal.31 After that, an unusual assignment beckoned: He journeyed a few blocks to the offices of the newspaper and joined sports editor Bruce Dudley in the composing room, where Ruth assisted in designing the following day’s sports stories and pages.32 In a late-night interview, he commented, “If I am any judge of a ball player, Combs will be a super star.”33

Combs too was busy after the game – but at a different sporting-goods store. It was Earle Combs Day at Roe-O’Connor’s, where an Earle Combs mini-bat was distributed to each customer, and the Yankee himself was on hand to give a free rule book to each child.34

By 11:00 P.M., Ruth was on a train for Chicago, where he was scheduled for an X-ray of the rib that he hurt earlier in the week.35 Whatever that result, he led the Yankees to a 6-3 victory over the White Sox the next day, going 2-for-3 with two RBIs and a run scored.36 Meanwhile, the Colonels left for the next day’s league game in Columbus.37

Although the Louisville men won 91 games that season, they finished in third place in the American Association and failed to make the playoffs. The Yankees won 89 games and finished in second place in the AL, two behind Washington.

 

October 24, 1928
Bustin’ Babes 13, Larrupin’ Lous 12

On September 17, 1928, the deadly Okeechobee hurricane struck Florida at West Palm Beach, leaving a trail of death and destruction. As a result, the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times engineered a postseason visit by Ruth and Lou Gehrig to benefit the Red Cross Florida Storm Relief Fund.38 Two weeks earlier, the Yankees had completed a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.

Ruth was scheduled to play first base for the Bustin’ Babes – actually Epps Kola, the top amateur team in the city – while Gehrig would perform with the Beck’s Lunch team, renamed the Larrupin’ Lous for the occasion.39

A busy day awaited. At 1:40 A.M., the train carrying the two Yankees arrived in town from Columbus, Ohio, site of their previous day’s game. Rising at 8:00 A.M., they were given a brief tour of the downtown area, including a stop at St. Xavier High School.40 There, Ruth immediately recognized Prefect of Studies Brother Bernard, one of his former teachers at St. Mary’s.41 Brother Bernard was quoted as saying, “George, my boy, you certainly have grown into a fine, big fellow since the days when you came romping into my classroom. …” To which Ruth replied, “Yes, brother, I guess I have changed quite a bit, but you haven’t. … Although it has been years since I saw you, I recognized you the minute I walked through the door.”42 Ruth addressed the St. X students, an event that was later memorialized in the school’s yearbook.43 The sportswriter Christy Walsh – Ruth and Gehrig’s agent – was also there.44

After stops at City Hall and the Hillerich & Bradsby Company, maker of their Louisville Slugger bats – where Ruth persuaded owner John A. “Bud” Hillerich to give him a new set of golf clubs45 — the two stars ate breakfast at the Kentucky Hotel, with Ruth ordering two of everything “except beans.”46 At noon, they were guests of the Kiwanis Club for lunch. Then they were driven to Parkway Field for the 2:00 game.

A paid crowd of 3,270 – distinctly fewer than in previous years – made their way to the ballpark in clear weather and 62 degrees.47 Schoolchildren with a note from their parents were excused by the Board of Education to attend the game.48 Ruth’s team won a 13-12 decision as he slammed two home runs – including one inside-the-park – two doubles, and a single, while Gehrig clubbed one homer and a single. The two Yankees each pitched the last three innings for their respective teams.

A shortage of baseballs almost caused an early finish to the exhibition. Nine dozen baseballs were on hand at the start of the game, but by the eighth inning, all but one had been used. After the last one was fouled into the stands, a young fan had to be “induced” to give it back so that the game could go on.49 (Babe had been prescient in this regard. A subheadline in the newspaper the day before read, “Babe Asks for 120 Baseballs – Slugger Thinks He and Lou Need That Many in City Game.”50)

With the game over in 1 hour and 50 minutes, Ruth and Gehrig, after eating, still had political commitments to fulfill. In the downtown Jefferson County Armory, a popular assembly place, Ruth addressed a packed house and extolled the virtues of his friend New York Governor Al Smith, who was the Democratic nominee in the coming presidential election.51 After he finished his impassioned speech (“Don’t forget what the Yanks did to Philadelphia when all the experts said the Yanks were through. …”) and sat down, his chair broke under him. However, disaster was averted when he grabbed a railing and prevented himself from falling off the speaker platform.52 John W. Davis, the Democratic nominee for president four years earlier, spoke after him. (“I agree with Democracy’s best batsman. …”)53

Ruth, joined by Gehrig, then walked a block to the auditorium of the historic Seelbach Hotel and spoke to a meeting of the Kentucky Young Men’s Democratic League.54 Although they had declined an invitation to take part in the Kentucky State Fox Hunt, it was still quite a hectic day for the two stars, described as “skilled fox hunters who seldom pass up an opportunity to indulge in one of their favorite pastimes.”55

In any event, the gate receipts enriched the Storm Relief Fund by $500; Ruth said that he had never autographed that many balls during a single day;56 and the two Yanks left by train to participate in a similar exhibition in Dayton, Ohio, the following day.57

April 4, 1932
New York Yankees 9, Louisville Colonels 6

This game marked the triumphant return to Louisville of a key member of the Yankee team – Joe McCarthy, in his second year as manager. He had spent 10 seasons with the Colonels, including seven at the helm, during which he won two pennants and one Junior World Series and had the team mostly in contention. Hired by the Cubs after the 1925 season, Marse Joe, as he came to be known, had yet to win a major-league World Series, although his Cubs won the 1929 NL pennant. His former player Bruno Betzel now managed the Colonels.

This exhibition game was a preseason affair, with both teams playing their way north after spring training. A day earlier, Colonels pitching held the visiting Cincinnati Reds to five hits in a 5-3 Louisville victory, while the New Yorkers trounced the Memphis Chicks, 17-4, after which they immediately left on a train for the Derby City.58

Despite their second-place American League finish in 1931, Ruth, Gehrig, and Combs still generated excitement wherever they played. The crowd that awaited their arrival at Central Station by the Ohio River was disappointed to learn that the Yankees had instead arrived at Union Station on Broadway, then proceeded to the nearby Kentucky Hotel.59

Prior to the afternoon game, Ruth made an appearance at a noon assembly at St. Xavier High School, where his old friend Brother Benjamin had once again become principal in 1931.60 When St. X freshman Joe Wells addressed the Yankees slugger as “Mr. Ruth,” he recalled what happened next: “… And with that, he shot back at me and said, ‘You call me “Babe,”’ and then he and Brother, they were laughing. They got a kick out of it. … So, anyway, we got off half a day, and most of us went out to Parkway Field to see the game. …”61

Before the game McCarthy took the field to an ovation from the 5,810 fans in attendance and was presented with a gold baseball manufactured by local jeweler Albert Grall.62 Izzy Goodman, McCarthy’s friend and former King of the Colonel Boosters, ended the pregame activities by giving him a large garland of roses.63

Although the April day was pleasant with a temperature of 73 at game’s end, the fielding in the two-hour game was ugly. The hometown team outhit the visitors 14-11, but the Colonels also managed to make seven errors (to the Yankees’ two), leading to a 9-6 New York victory. Gehrig and Combs went hitless in a combined 11 trips to the plate, but Ruth singled and doubled in five plate appearances, driving in three runs. Yankees right fielder Ben Chapman was a home run short of the cycle while pitcher Gordon Rhodes, relieved by Ivy Paul Andrews, picked up the victory. The Colonels hurlers Clyde Hatter (who took the loss), Archie McKain, and Eldon McLean gave up only one hit – a single –in the final four innings.64

Destinations were varied. In the short term, the Yankees headed 106 miles to Cincinnati for their exhibition against the Reds the next day, while the Colonels awaited the Chicago White Sox for games on April 5 and 6. In six months Ruth would be bound for his historic “called shot” game against the Cubs, helping the Yankees capture another World Series – the first of seven for manager McCarthy, who had been dismissed by the Cubs management two years earlier.

April 29 to May 2, 1936
The Kentucky Derby

Instead of baseball bats, golf clubs were in Babe Ruth’s hands during his next visit to Louisville. Upon arriving at 11:33 A.M. on Wednesday of Derby Week with his wife, Claire, and daughter, Julia, Ruth said, “I’ve been waiting 20 years for a chance to see the Kentucky Derby, and here I am.”65 The 62nd running of the “greatest two minutes in sport” was three days away.

Eleven months after his final appearance as a player, Ruth was in town as the guest of John A. “Bud” Hillerich, the man who transformed his father’s woodworking company into one that manufactured the bats used and endorsed by the Yankees slugger.66 They had been friendly for some years: In 1918, Ruth sent a thank-you note to Hillerich after the latter paid him a $100 endorsement fee to place his signatures on Louisville Slugger bats;67 15 years later, Ruth personally invited Hillerich to attend a dinner he gave at the New York Athletic Club to celebrate the All-American Board of Baseball writers who helped select Ruth’s annual “All-American teams.”68 Then in October 1934, Hillerich and his wife, Rose, had accompanied 14 major-league players and their families, including Babe, Claire, and Julia, on their trip to Japan, where the “Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig All-Stars” went 17-0.69 After the series, Bud and Rose joined the Ruths, Lefty and June Gomez, and a few others as they continued their trip around the world, visiting Java, Bali, Egypt, Venice, Paris, St. Moritz, and London.70 Expanding his PowerBilt golf-club line, Hillerich provided Ruth and other players with free clubs for offseason play in Florida.71 No doubt personal bonds were formed over the years due to these connections.

Two hours after stepping off the train and checking into his suite at the Kentucky Hotel, Ruth was playing 18 holes at Audubon Country Club, where Ward Hillerich, Bud’s son, was three-time defending club champion. Ruth’s partner in the best-ball competition was Bobby Craigs, the club professional and a future member of the Kentucky Golf Hall of Fame. Hillerich was paired with Wild Bill Mehlhorn, a noted touring professional who had 20 wins on the PGA tour.72

Ruth was passionate about golf, and he played quite frequently.73 For example, during the 1932 offseason, he played well at the West Coast Open tournament, leading the amateurs.74 His powerful swing and marvelous hand/eye coordination served him well on the golf course.

However, Ruth and his partner were bested by Hillerich’s team, 3 and 2, on that first day at Audubon, despite his drive that went 300 yards on the fourth hole. Individual scores were also kept, and Ruth shot an 84. One observer said, “The Babe cracks the ball like a willowy kid despite the tremendous depth and breadth of his chest and shoulders.” Ruth called for a rematch, vowing to do better now that he had played the course.75

Before play began the next day, Ruth was made an honorary member of the Kentucky Association of Left-Handed Golfers.76 On the course, the public had been invited to what he called “a grudge match,” and, in front of a gallery of spectators, he improved his score to 80, with his team winning, 1-up. Amazingly, he had been allowed a six-stroke handicap!77

Setting his golf clubs aside on Derby Eve, Ruth was invited by Bud Hillerich to be his guest at a different sporting event, and he spent the evening at the boxing matches in the downtown Armory.78 Refereed by boxing legend Jack Dempsey – also now retired – the 10-round, nontitle main event pitted Barney Ross, the world welterweight champion, from Chicago, against Chuck Woods from Detroit, ranked sixth in that division. Ruth joined a crowd of 4,118 and saw Ross manhandle Woods, knocking him out in the fifth round.79

Other celebrities were present that night; in fact, the largest ovation was not directed at Ruth – he finished third in that comparison, behind crowd favorite Dempsey and Joe E. Brown, the popular wide-mouthed comic film star. All three were invited into the ring prior to the main event to briefly address the crowd, and they were involved in a bit of tomfoolery with each other.80

Another significant Kentucky personality was present that evening – A.B. “Happy” Chandler, then early in his first term as governor, who brought 50 of his political friends with him.81 That evening may have been the beginning of the friendship that was forged between Ruth and Chandler, who became commissioner of baseball in 1945. In that future capacity, Chandler was a tearful visitor to a cancer-ravaged Ruth in the hospital; proclaimed April 27, 1947, to be Babe Ruth Day in every Organized Baseball ballpark; and was a speaker on that very day in Yankee Stadium when Ruth personally appeared.82

On a partly sunny, 78-degree Derby Day, Ruth and his wife shared a box out in the open with their host, Bud Hillerich; the Dempseys were seated not far away.83 Ruth had a history of being besieged by autograph seekers when he came to Louisville; he remembered the vast numbers of baseballs that he autographed when he was in town in 1928.84 He handled that possibility in unique Ruthian manner, according to Bud’s son Junie: Before going to the track, Ruth put a bandage on his right thumb and forefinger and told autograph hounds that he hurt his hand in the elevator the night before.85 Photographs support that story and the inference that left-handed-batting Ruth signed with his right hand.86

That wasn’t the only trickery he perpetrated that day – he put one over on his wife, too. Well-known for the fiscal responsibility that she brought to their marriage, Claire kept a close eye on his betting. Babe wanted to place a $5,000 wager on the odds-on favorite, Brevity, and he did so by sneaking away from Claire before they went to the Downs and calling his bookmaker in New York.

Ruth didn’t leave his seat all day except for a brief time to place a legal parimutuel wager on Brevity, and Claire was happy with his apparently responsible behavior. After Brevity finished second in the big race to Bold Venture, a 20-to-1 longshot, she became suspicious and questioned Babe about whether he had bet on the race. He confessed that he did, and he showed her the $10 ticket. Claire was very delighted – as was the bookie back home.87

Afterword

It appears that Babe never returned to the Derby City after that stay, but his memory lived on at Hillerich & Bradsby. Their advertising manager Jack McGrath recalled, “Ruth was an easy guy to please with bats. … Ruth seldom broke a bat, but he bought more of our bats than any ballplayer that ever lived. He gave so many away.”88 As a mark of his personal friendship with Bud Hillerich, Ruth always posed with the familiar H&B “Louisville Slugger” trademark logo showing on the bat he was holding.

Three months prior to Ruth’s death at the age of 53 in August 1948, it was reported that he would possibly return to Parkway Field in July as the guest of Bruce Dudley, then president of the Colonels, in conjunction with an American Legion baseball tournament.89 He and Dudley were longtime friends from the days when the latter was the sports editor of the Courier-Journal and would accompany the youthful winners of Ruth’s All-American Contest to meet the Babe in person.90 In light of the serious nature of Ruth’s medical condition, such a Louisville visit was wishful thinking at best.

Louisville’s love for Babe Ruth, begun almost 100 years ago, continues to this day. One of the most viewed items at popular Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory is a bat that he used during one of his baseball-bashing seasons. He carved 21 notches on it – one for each home run he hit.91 Outside of the factory/museum rests the world’s largest baseball bat. Made of steel, it weighs 68,000 pounds and reaches 120 feet into the sky. According to curator Chris Meiman, “The Big Bat is an exact-scale replica of Babe Ruth’s R43 Louisville Slugger bat.”92

HARRY ROTHGERBER, a SABR member since 1983, has led the Pee Wee Reese Chapter for 20 years. A former member of the national SABR Board of Directors, he served as co-chair of the successful 1997 national convention in Louisville, Kentucky. Harry collects books by and about Babe Ruth, and his own work Young Babe Ruth was published by McFarland in 1999. An attorney by profession, he works as a prosecutor and writer and lives in Louisville with his wife of 50 years, Helen.

1 “ ‘Full House’ To Greet Baseball’s Champion Slugger Today,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 15, 1921: 6.

2 Brother John Joseph Sterne, Growing in Excellence: The Story, Spirit and Tradition of Saint Xavier (Louisville: ikonographics, Inc., 1989), 93.

3 “Full House.”

4 Brother Gilbert, C.F.X.; edited by Harry Rothgerber, Young Babe Ruth: His Early Life and Baseball Career (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., Inc., 1999), 184-185. “Ruby’s Report,” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 5, 1940: 39. “Brother Benjamin Greeted as Principal at St. Xavier,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 25, 1931: 4.

5 The Encyclopedia of Louisville, s.v. “Orphanages,” 679-681.

6 Ibid.

7 “Even Mighty ‘Babe’ Is ‘Struck Out,’ ” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 16, 1921: 3.

8 “Full House.”

9 Ibid.

10 “Full House”; Bruce Dudley, “Babe Ruth and Earle Combs Strut Stuff at Ball Park Today,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 2, 1924: 9. “Colonels Triumph Over Yankees Before Record Ball Crowd,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 16, 1921: 6. “Ruby’s Report,” Louisville Courier-Journal, January 31, 1946: 17.

11 “Colonels Triumph”: 6, 7.

12 “Colonels Triumph”: 6.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 “Full House.” “Colonels Triumph”: 6.

16 “Colonels Triumph”: 6,7.

17 Ibid.

18 A Constant Reader, “Monday’s Baseball Game,” Point of View column, Louisville Courier-Journal, August 18, 1921: 4.

19 R.J.H., “Pro-Ruth #2,” Point of View Column, Louisville Courier-Journal, August 20, 1921: 4.

20 A Local Fan, “Pro-Ruth #3,” Point of View Column, Louisville Courier-Journal, August 20, 1921: 4.

21 “Profitable Day for Yankees,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 18, 1921: 7.

22 Philip Von Borries, The Louisville Baseball Almanac (Charleston, South Carolina: History Press, 2010), 51.

23 “Yanks Break Even With Phillies; Babe Knocked Out, Then Gets Homer,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 1, 1924: 60.

24 Richard B. Lutz, “Earle Combs: Louisville Colonel and Gentleman,” A Celebration of Louisville Baseball in the Major and Minor Leagues (Pittsburgh: Matthews Printing, 1997); Dudley, “Babe Ruth and Earle Combs.”

25 Anne Jewell, Baseball in Louisville (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), 36.

26 Jewell, 39, 60-61.

27 “10,000 Cheer Babe Ruth as Ball Sails Over Parkway Field Fence,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 3, 1924: 1, 3; “It Was a Perfect Day! Ruth Hit Homer and Colonels Won,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 3, 1924: 9.

28 “St. Xavier Cubs Win Tenth Straight,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 1, 1924: 59.

29 Bruce Dudley, “Mighty Babe Crashes Longest Hit in Louisville Baseball History,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 3, 1924: 9.

30 “Men With Louisville Ties Made Strong Impact on Career of Ruth,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 17, 1948: 15.

31 Dudley, “Babe Ruth and Earle Combs Strut Stuff,” 10. “10,000 Cheer,” 3.

32 “ ‘King of Swat’ Will Appear at Parkway Field This Afternoon,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 2, 1924: 1. “10,000 Cheer”: 1, 3.

33 “It Was a Perfect Day”: 9. This is the earliest use of the term “super star” that the author has found.

34 “Earl [sic] Combs Day at Roe-O-Connor’s Monday,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 1, 1924: 62.

35 “10,000 Cheer”: 1.

36 “Yanks Combine Own Hits With Errors of White Sox to Capture First, 6-3,” Louisville Courier-Journal, June 4, 1924: 7.

37 Dudley, “Babe Ruth and Earle Combs Strut Stuff,” 10.

38 “Ruth, Gehrig to Come Here From Columbus for Contest,” Louisville Courier-Journal, October 23, 1928: 13.

39 Ibid.

40 “Ruth and Gehrig to Exhibit at Parkway Field Today,” Louisville Courier-Journal, October 24, 1928: 13.

41 “Former Teacher Greets Babe,” Louisville Times, October 25, 1928: 1.

42 Ibid.

43 Senior Class of St. Xavier High School, The Tiger, 1934, 45.

44 Sterne, 105.

45 Tommy Fitzgerald, “Ruth Set Autographing Mark Here; Teams Beg Back Last of 108 Balls!” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 18, 1948: 17.

46 Pete Johnson, “Babe Asks for 120 Baseballs,” Louisville Times, October 24, 1928: 1.

47 “Ruth and Gehrig Delight 3,270 Baseball Admirers Here,” Louisville Courier-Journal, October 25, 1928: 17.

48 “Ruth and Gehrig to Exhibit”: 14.

49 “Ruth and Gehrig Delight”: 18.

50 Pete Johnson.

51 “ ‘Babe’ Declares ‘Al’ Has Earned Victory,” Louisville Courier-Journal, October 25, 1928: 1.

52 “ ‘Babe’ Declares”: 2.

53 “ ‘Babe’ Declares”: 1.

54 “ ‘Babe’ Declares”: 2.

55 “Ruth, Gehrig to Come Here From Columbus”: 13.

56 “Ruth and Gehrig Delight”: 17-18.

57 “Babe, Lou in Dayton After Showing Here,” Louisville Times, October 25, 1928: 2.

58 “Colonels Beat Reds by 5-3 and Are Ready for Yankees,” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 4, 1932: 8, 9.

59 “Marse Joe’s Yankees Here, Play Colonels,” Louisville Times, April 4, 1932: 1.

60 Bruce Dudley, “Colonels Outhit Yankees but Lose on Errors by 9 to 6,” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 5, 1932: 11.

61 Joe Wells, tape-recorded interview, September 8, 1997.

62 Bruce Dudley, “Colonels Outhit Yankees”: 11.

63 Ibid.; Jewell, 45.

64 Bruce Dudley, “Colonels Outhit Yankees”: 11.

65 “Ruth, Here for Derby, Exults in His Freedom,” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 30, 1936: 45.

66 Tommy Fitzgerald, “More People Fooled at 1936 Derby by Ruth Than by Bold Venture,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 19, 1948: 19.

67 David Magee and Philip Shirley, Sweet Spot: 125 Years of Baseball and the Louisville Slugger (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2009), 45.

68 “Ruth Asks Hillerich to Baseball Banquet,” Louisville Courier-Journal, December 16, 1933: 10.

69 Magee and Shirley, 56-57.

70 Magee and Shirley, 57.

71 Magee and Shirley, 54.

72 Earl Ruby, “Audubon Championship,” The Foreground Column, Louisville Courier-Journal, July 15, 1936: 14. Jack Harrison, “A Scorecard That Was Worth Keeping,” Louisville Eccentric Observer, August 9, 2000: 22.

73 Robert W. Creamer, Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (New York: Fireside Books, 1974), 407-408.

74 “Burke Is Leader,” Louisville Courier-Journal, February 28, 1932: 33.

75 “Ruth, Here for Derby,” 47. Earl Ruby, “A Tip a Day,” Louisville Courier-Journal, May 1, 1936: 27. Harrison: 22.

76 Earl Ruby, “Babe a Portsider,” Louisville Courier-Journal, April 30, 1936: 46.

77 Harrison: 22.

78 “Ross-Woods May Draw Top Crowd,” Louisville Courier-Journal, May 1, 1936: 27.

79 Heggy Dent, “Ross Knocks Out Woods With Shower of Blows in the Fifth,” Louisville Courier-Journal, May 2, 1936: 13.

80 Dent: 14.

81 “Ross-Woods May Draw Top Crowd”: 27.

82 Marshall Smelser, The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography (New York: Bison Books, 1993), 533-535.

83 Ulric Bell, “Favorites of Fortune Try Lucky Fling,” Louisville Courier-Journal, May 3, 1936: 7.

84 Tommy Fitzgerald, “Ruth Set Autographing Mark Here,” 17. “Ruth and Gehrig Delight,” 18.

85 Tommy Fitzgerald, “More People Fooled at 1936 Derby”: 19.

86 Ibid.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 “Dudley May Be Host to Babe Ruth,” Ruby’s Report, Louisville Courier-Journal, May 21, 1948: 45.

90 Ibid.

91 Tommy Fitzgerald, “More People Fooled at 1936 Derby,” 19. Email Interview with Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory curator and exhibits director Chris Meiman, July-August 2018.

92 Email Interview with LSMF curator Chris Meiman, August 2018.

“Don’t tell me about Ruth; I’ve seen what he did to people. … I’ve seen them: kids, men, women, worshipers all, hoping to get his famous name on a torn, dirty piece of paper, or hoping to get a grunt of recognition when they said, ‘H’ya, Babe.’ He never let them down; not once! He was the greatest crowd pleaser of them all.” – Waite Hoyt 1

 

 

Just six days after winning the 1928 World Series, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig stepped off a train at Union Station in Ottawa, Ontario, the Canadian capital. It was a Monday noontime in mid-October, and some 500 fans, many of them boys conspicuously absent from school, milled expectantly in the concourse.

Suddenly the two greatest players on the greatest team in baseball came through the gate. For all the attention he attracted, the younger one, a handsome, Columbia University-educated 25-year-old, who would one day screen-test for the role of Tarzan, might have been a railway clerk on his way to lunch. Every eye in the place was locked on his companion, a beaming, pug-faced 33-year-old in a brown suit, brown overcoat, and a brown felt hat.

The crowd engulfed him, slapping him on the back, yelling “Hurrah for The Babe.”2 Despite his 6-feet-2-inches and 217 pounds, Ruth moved with a surprising nimbleness, hailing knots of kids with a scattershot “Howdy, bud,” as he made his way through the hall.3 Breaking stride for an instant, he centered out one small boy on the fringes of the mob for a cheery “Hello.” The boy went popeyed and almost fell over.4 The biggest kid on the continent had spoken to him.

One reporter found Ruth “far from the phlegmatic type many imagine. … He had a cheery word for everybody and, while he is perhaps one of the most pestered people in the world, he stands the often trying adulation of the sport mob with great patience and takes zest in everything and everybody, particularly the youngsters.”5 In fact, one of the first things Ruth had done when he arrived was to dash off a wire to the superintendent of the Ottawa Boys’ Club, with his best wishes for the organization.

The Murderers’ Row Yankees, hit hard by illness and injury, had won 13 fewer games in 1928 than they had the previous season. Ruth, hobbled by a charley horse and other ailments, had seen his average dip from .356 to .323, and his home runs from an iconic 60 to a mere league-leading 54. Gehrig’s average had held steady, but his home-run total had plummeted, from 47 to 27.

It was just enough to carry the Yankees to their third straight American League pennant, by 2½ games over the Philadelphia Athletics. In the Series, they would be up against the St. Louis Cardinals, a team featuring six future Hall of Fame players and a Hall of Fame manager.

It was no contest. Ruth batted .625 (10-for-16), with three home runs, all coming in the fourth and final game. “The able Ruth, heralded as a cripple, pounded the crack St. Louis hurlers as if they were but Class ‘C’ pitchers in a bad slump,” the Ottawa Journal reported.6 Gehrig, for his part, batted .545 with 4 home runs and 9 runs batted in. Sweep, Yankees. Babe and Lou each pocketed a winner’s share of $5,531.97. Now it was time to make some real dough.

Star players could make as much or more with a postseason barnstorming tour as they could in an entire major-league season. Ruth, for one, had barnstormed practically every fall since 1916, when he was still a member of the Boston Red Sox. Given his prodigious appetite for flivvers, floozies, stogies, hooch, and weenies, the postseason appearances had become something of a financial necessity.

In 1927 Ruth had recruited rising superstar Gehrig and embarked on a 21-game “Bustin’ Babes and Larrupin’ Lous” odyssey, from Providence, Rhode Island, to San Diego, California. Playing with and against mostly amateur and semiprofessional squads, the pair drew some 220,000 fans. Ruth netted about $70,000 from the tour, the equivalent of his annual Yankees’ salary. Gehrig received a flat $10,000, which was $2,000 more than he’d earned during a regular season in which he had batted .373 and driven in 173 runs.

The 1928 World Series wrapped up on October 9. Five days later, Ruth and Gehrig kicked off their second Bustin’ Babes and Larrupin’ Lous tour in Montreal, where they lined up with Ahuntsic, champion of the racially integrated, semipro Ligue de la Cité (City League), against Chappie Johnson’s All-Stars,77 an all-black team from the same circuit. Before the game, they staged a home-run derby, swatting pitch after pitch out of the park to the delight of a crowd of between 14,000 and 16,000.

The game ended – as these games frequently did – with the fans flooding onto the field in the bottom of the eighth to celebrate a Gehrig home run that gave Ahuntsic an 8-6 lead. Ruth, who had last pitched in the majors in 1920, tossed the final three innings for the win, but at the plate managed only a pair of singles and a walk.

Arriving in Ottawa the next day, Babe and Lou repaired to a first-floor suite at the landmark Château Laurier hotel, just across the Rideau Canal from Canada’s Parliament Buildings. Ruth invited local newsmen to hang out as he and Gehrig prepared for their game later that afternoon in Hull, Quebec, the city on the north side of the Ottawa River opposite the capital.

Inevitably, having landed in a political town, Babe was pressed for his thoughts on the upcoming US presidential election. He was an Al Smith supporter, he said, referring to the anti-Prohibitionist Democratic governor of New York, but conceded that Smith had “a tough fight ahead of him.”8

Gehrig’s political opinions, if any, went unrecorded.

 

 

“I know that as long as I was following Ruth to the plate I could have stood on my head and no one would have known the difference.” – Lou Gehrig9

While the reticent Gehrig did his best to blend in with the wallpaper, The Babe held court. “Tell the boys we are both glad to be here, even for such a short visit,” he said, “and at Dupuis Park this afternoon we will try and provide our share of the entertainment.”10

Asked how he was feeling, Ruth said, “I bet I can’t even throw a ball today, that arm of mine is so sore.”11 Was he going to pitch in Hull? “You bet your life I’m not,” he guffawed, adding that he had also signed 18 dozen baseballs as part of the Montreal appearance.12

“Babe Ready for Hull Swatfest,”13 reported the Ottawa Citizen, while the Ottawa Journal colorfully stated the obvious: “The thousands who are likely to crowd the park will want to see Lou and Babe whang the apple over the car tracks.”14

For a 3 o’clock game on a Monday afternoon in the middle of October, more than 3,000 spectators paid a dollar apiece – 50 cents for kids – to see Ruth, in his black Bustin’ Babes uniform (which, one reporter quipped, “showed his figure to advantage”15) and Gehrig, in his Larrupin’ Lous whites, do some heavy whanging. Ahuntsic and an integrated all-star team from the Montreal City League made up the supporting cast. The promoters had brought five dozen baseballs so there would be a ready supply for the pregame home-run exhibition and autograph session.

On this day, Ruth and Gehrig swapped their usual positions. Babe shifted to first base to give his sore wing a rest, a move that would also give him the chance to engage in nonstop banter with the fans. Lou started in left field, then came in to pitch the last two innings.

A swatfest it wasn’t. Neither slugger could make solid contact against the All-Stars’ pitcher, from the Guybourg club of the Montreal City League. He was identified in the box scores as Guillaume, but his real name was Ralph Williams, nicknamed Bill. One of the top hurlers in the province, Williams was a 35-year-old right-hander with a baffling array of deliveries – overhand, side-arm, underhand. Guillaume was the gallicized nom de guerre he assumed when he played for francophone teams.16

After the match, there were grumblings from fans about Guillaume’s perceived failure, whether dictated by nervousness or competitive pride, to groove some of his offerings to the Yankee sluggers. For eight innings, he held Babe and Lou not just homerless but hitless. One reporter would liken the disappointing spectacle to “a performance of Hamlet without the Dane.”17

The All-Stars, bolstered by some local athletic royalty – future Hockey Hall of Famers Frankie Boucher, star center of the Stanley Cup champion New York Rangers, and his brother George, an Ottawa Senators defenseman – led 1-0. George belted a double off Gehrig and robbed Ruth with a one-handed stab up against the center-field scoreboard.

Ahuntsic tied the game in the seventh, when Gehrig reached base on an infield error and later scored. Then in the eighth, Ruth finally got hold of one, doubling to drive in two and break the 1-1 tie. Gehrig followed with a fly out, stranding Babe at second. With that the kids in the stands, unable to restrain themselves any longer, poured onto the field, bringing the game to an early end.

“Over the fence they came in hundreds,” the Citizen reported, and The Babe was engulfed by “a milling, shouting, worshipping mob of youngsters who clamored for handshakes, autographs and what have you in general.”18 The what-have-yous included Ruth’s Bustin’ Babes cap and both sluggers’ bats, which were borne off like religious relics.

Babe and Lou eventually managed to jostle their way to the parking lot. They drove away, a swarm of kids pursuing their car through the streets of Hull.

Back in Ottawa, they boarded an 11 P.M. train at Union Station. Next stop: Buffalo.

DAVID McDONALD is a writer, filmmaker and broadcaster who grew up watching Rocky Nelson, Sam Jethroe, and Mike Goliat at Maple Leaf Stadium in Toronto. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

 

Notes

1 John Tullius, I’d Rather Be a Yankee: An Oral History of America’s Most Loved and Most Hated Baseball Team (New York: Macmillan, 1986), 40.

2 “Big Crowd Welcomes Ruth and Gehrig to Ottawa; Babe Is for Al; Monarch of the Diamond Is in Ottawa with His Larruping Team-Mate; May Go Fishing Up the Gatineau,” Ottawa Journal, October 15, 1928.

3 “Babe Ready for Hull Swatfest,” Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 1928.

4 Ottawa Journal, October 15, 1928.

5 “Home Run Twins Perform Here Monday; Great Babe Ruth and Gehrig, Heroes of 1928 World Series, to Be in Action (at) Dupuis Park; Stars of New York Yankees’ Triumph Over St. Louis Cardinals in World Series Will Exhibit Their Prowess with the Bat Before Ottawa and Hull Fans, Will Line Up with Two Teams Selected from Montreal Semi-Pro Ranks. Yankee Pair Set Up String of Records with Home Run Drives Against Cardinals,” Ottawa Citizen, October 12, 1928.

6 Salt Lake City Tribune, October 10, 1928.

7 7 A.k.a. the Chappies, owned and managed by former Negro Leagues star George “Chappie” Johnson Jr., a native of Bellaire, Ohio. The Chappies played in the Montreal City League in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s.

8 Ottawa Journal, October 15, 1928. Rarely reluctant to share his political opinions, Ruth nevertheless failed to cast a ballot in 1928 or in other presidential election until 1944.

9 Tom Meany, Baseball’s Greatest Players (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1953), 99.

10 Ottawa Citizen, October 15, 1928.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Baz O’Meara, “Sport Facts and Fancies,” Ottawa Journal, October 15, 1928.

15 “Ruth and Gehrig Failed to Hammer Out Keenly Awaited Circuit Wallops, Disappoint Three Thousand Fans; Young Admirers Rush Twain Off Field and Break Up Game – Ruth Good Showman – Geo. Boucher Stars with Circus Catch of Ruth’s Hit,” Ottawa Journal, October 16, 1928.

16 Bert Williams, 92-year-old son of Ralph Williams, telephone interview with author., December 17, 2009. Ralph Williams, a.k.a Guillaume, once told his son that facing Ruth and Gehrig “was the best thing he ever did.”

17 Ottawa Journal, October 16, 1928.

18 “Ruth and Gehrig Thrill Crowd in Exhibition Game at Dupuis; Home Run Kings Play Before Huge Throng on Hull Diamond. Neither Lou nor Babe Blast Any Long Balls Out of the Park During Contest, but Show Prowess at Long Distance Hitting in Batting Practice. Ruth’s Double Wins Game for Ahuntsic Team. Youngsters Terminate Game in 8th, Nearly Mobbing Babe and Lou,” Ottawa Citizen, October 16, 1928.

“Something about Canada seemed to agree with him … on an intriguing psychological level. He spent years telling people all sorts of odd fibs about his supposed Canadian connections.” — David Giddens, CBC Sports1

 

Given that he was a notoriously unreliable witness to his own life, the inconsistencies and the discrepancies in the Babe’s telling of it are hardly surprising. While some of the purported connections between Ruth and Canada don’t pan out, the country was a recurring setting and its people enthusiastic supporting players in the Babe Ruth story. Here are some of the highlights:

1902. Dispatched to St. Mary’s Industrial School for Orphans, Delinquent, Incorrigible and Wayward Boys, in his native Baltimore, 7-year-old George Herman Ruth Jr. was taken under the wing of the school’s hulking assistant athletic director and prefect of discipline, the Xaverian layman Brother Matthias.

Matthias’s real name was Martin Boutilier,2 and he had come to Baltimore from the coal-mining town of Lingan, on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island.

Ruth later described Matthias as “the father I needed”3 and “the greatest man I’ve ever known.”4 It was the 6-foot-4, 225-pound Cape Bretoner (some sources list him at 6-feet-6 and up to 300 pounds) who mesmerized the young Ruth with his ability to hit towering fungoes during practices. “I think I was born as a hitter the first day I ever saw him hit a baseball,” Babe said.5

July 9, 1914. Boston Red Sox owner Joe Lannin acquired Ruth, along with fellow pitcher Ernie Shore and catcher Ben Egan, from cash-strapped Baltimore Orioles owner Jack Dunn for a reported $25,000.

Lannin, from Lac-Beauport, Quebec, was a character from the pages of a Horatio Alger novel. Orphaned in his early teens, he set out to seek his fortune in the United States. Arriving in Boston in 1880 – legend has it, on foot – Lannin started out as a bellhop. Eventually he made a small fortune in commodities and real estate. In 1913 he bought a 50 percent share in the Red Sox.

Lannin’s teams won World Series in 1915 and 1916. But the pressures of baseball, even winning baseball, proved overwhelming for the transplanted Quebecker. “I am too much of a fan to be an owner and it was interfering with my health,” he told the New York Times.6 In 1917 he sold his interest in the club to Harry Frazee, later vilified as the man who sold Ruth to the Yankees. Lannin is a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

July 11, 1914. Nineteen-year-old Babe Ruth’s first day in Boston was an eventful one. In the morning, by most accounts, he stopped for breakfast at a diner called Landers Coffee Shop and took a fancy to a young waitress, Helen Woodford. In the afternoon, he started his first major-league game, where the first batter he faced was Cleveland Naps left fielder Jack Graney. Graney, from St. Thomas, Ontario, singled but Ruth recovered to pitch seven solid innings in a 4-3 win.

Graney played his entire 14-year career with Cleveland. In 1932 he became the first ex-major leaguer to become a play-by-play announcer, as the radio voice of the Indians. He is a member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

September 5, 1914. Sent down to the International League Providence Grays, Ruth threw a one-hit shutout and hit his first – and only – minor-league home run. It was a three-run shot and came in the sixth inning of a 9-0 victory over the Maple Leafs at Hanlan’s Point Stadium in Toronto.

October 17, 1914. After a courtship of less than two months, Ruth, 19, married his favorite waitress, Helen Woodford. Press reports variously stated they had married in Providence, Rhode Island, or in Boston. To add to the confusion, Babe would tell some people that Helen (like Brother Matthias) was a Nova Scotian, while, on her marriage-license application, Helen herself claimed to be from Galveston, Texas. By the time of Babe’s first passport application, in 1920, Galveston would morph into El Paso. None of this was true.

The uncertainty about Helen’s origins and the location of their wedding probably began as a subterfuge to obscure the fact she was still a few days shy of her 18th birthday when they got hitched. The facts are these: Helen was born Mary Ellen Woodford in Boston on October 20, 1896. (Why she and Babe wouldn’t have waited another three days to marry legally remains a mystery.) Helen was the third of nine children of Michael and Johanna Woodford, immigrants, not from Nova Scotia as is sometimes stated, but from Newfoundland.7 And Babe and Helen were married in Ellicott City, Maryland – or, as Ruth would later remember on Grantland Rice’s radio show, in a place called “Elkton.”8

October 1923. Ruth and pitcher Herb Pennock celebrated the Yankees’ first World Series win with a hunting trip to “the big-game territory of the Miramichi, New Brunswick, where the moose run wild.”9 Oddly, their choice of a hunting companion was coach Hughie Jennings of the Series-losing Giants.

October 20, 1925. An ailing Babe, still struggling to bounce back from “the bellyache heard ’round the world,”10 returned to New Brunswick on another moose-hunting expedition, this time in the company of fellow ballplayers Bob Shawkey, Eddie Collins, Joe Bush, Muddy Ruel, and Benny Bengough. Their camp, on the Tobique River in the northwest of the province, was located 40 miles deep into the bush. Babe managed the first 15 miles of the trek on foot but finished it on horseback.

Three weeks later, according to Shawkey, a revitalized Ruth hiked the entire 40 miles back to the nearest railway station without a word of complaint. Nevertheless, when Babe reported to a New York gym in early December, he tipped the scales at 254 pounds. His trainer, Artie McGovern, melodramatically pronounced Babe “as near to being a total loss as any patient I have ever had under my care,”11 thereby setting the stage for a demonstration of his own miraculous abilities as a fitness guru.

October 17, 1926. A week after losing the Series to Pete Alexander and the St. Louis Cardinals, Ruth, along with Yankees teammate Urban Shocker, popped up in Montreal on the fourth stop of a postseason barnstorming tour. Babe was guaranteed a minimum of $3,000 for a cold, gray afternoon’s work. He did not disappoint.

Suiting up for Guybourg against Montreal City League rival Beaurivage. Babe belted two home runs. The first came off Shocker, while the second, a game-winning rocket off Chicago White Sox prospect Paddy Galkin, reportedly traveled more than 600 feet. The blow came just five days after another Bunyanesque blast, one estimated by witnesses at Artillery Park in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to have traveled 650 feet.

When a pregame slugging exhibition was added in, the Montreal moonshot became the Babe’s 36th dinger of the day, and it brought the festivities to a sudden halt “because the management had no more spheres.”12 Ruth, with three innings of hitless relief, was also the winning pitcher.

November 1926. Ruth headlined for a week at the Pantages Theater in Vancouver, British Columbia, on a bill touted as the “The King of Swat and five other big acts.”13 The B.C. appearance was one stop on a highly lucrative vaudeville tour, for which the Babe took in “a cool 100,000 smacks for 12 weeks of cavorting before Alex’s footlights.”14 It was almost twice Ruth’s annual baseball salary and, on a weekly basis, eclipsed the earnings of vaudeville’s biggest stars, including W.C. Fields, Al Jolson, and Fanny Brice.

The 20-minute “act,” repeated four times a day, began with some film clips of the Babe in action, followed by a few jokes, a fictionalized and highly sanitized rendition of his life story, a swing demonstration, and an on-stage autograph session. Later on the tour, teammate Mark Koenig would pronounce Ruth’s set “boring as hell.”15 Vancouver audiences were too spellbound to notice.16

 

October 1928. Ruth and Lou Gehrig brought their Bustin’ Babes and Larrupin’ Lous postseason tour to Montreal and Ottawa-Hull. (See the accompanying article, “The Babe Comes North.”)

October 19, 1934. Ruth, then 39 and soon to be an ex-Yankee, returned to Vancouver as the star attraction of Connie Mack’s All-Americans. The squad, featuring seven future Hall of Famers and polyglot backup catcher and future spy Moe Berg, was en route to Japan for a 16-game postseason tour.

In Vancouver, they were slated to play against a local semipro club, but with the rain pounding down, the players anticipated a relaxing evening. The Babe was even photographed in his hotel suite wearing striped pajamas and a garish bathrobe, smoking his pipe and digesting a roast-duck dinner. But when word reached the hotel that 3,000 fans were arriving at the ballpark demanding to see their idols in action, Ruth reportedly rallied the troops. “If these people can take the weather, so can we,” he said. “We’re gonna give ’em a ball game.”17

Ruth and company headed to the field, the outfield of which was described as a “rice paddy,”18 the infield “a mud pit.”19Gehrig appeared on field wearing rubber boots and holding an umbrella. But when the umpires tried to call the game after six innings, Ruth insisted on playing it to a soggy conclusion. The teams played to a 2-2 tie. The next day Babe and the All-Americans boarded the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Japanfor the 12-day voyage to Yokohama.

April 16, 1935. George “Twinkletoes” Selkirk, a native of Huntsville, Ontario, took over the most challenging position in baseball – post-Ruth right field in Yankee Stadium on Opening Day. Adding to the pressure, Selkirk took the field wearing Babe’s iconic number 3 and batting in his old number 3 slot in the Yankees order. Still, he managed one of only two Yankee safeties in a 1-0 loss to Wes Ferrell and the Red Sox.

Over the next eight seasons, Twinkletoes would run up numbers that, while hardly Ruthian, were nevertheless fairly impressive. For his career, he batted .290/.400/.483 with a 127 OPS+ and 108 home runs. He won five World Series and appeared in two All-Star Games. Selkirk is another member of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

July 1936. Ruth, recently inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s inaugural class, visited the coal town of Westville, Nova Scotia, at the invitation of a local doctor he had met in New York. It was one of many post-retirement trips Babe made to the home province of his mentor, Brother Matthias.

Prior to a ballgame featuring the hometown Miners, the Babe took a few cuts and swatted a ball over the center-field fence. He also spent some time salmon fishing in the St. Mary’s River, playing golf in Halifax, Digby, and Pictou, and knocking back a few crustaceans at the Pictou County Lobster Festival.

October 1937. Ruth’s fall hunting trip to Nova Scotia was documented in Outdoor Life magazine: “He is a snapshooter, as quick as lightning, and he can drill a tomato can at 60 yards.”20

Back in New York, Babe rolled off the ship from Yarmouth in his Stutz Bearcat, three deer carcasses strapped to the fenders and a 250-pound black bear slumped in the rumble seat. His next stop was a charity golf match on Long Island before 10,000 spectators.

August 1, 1942. Ruth flew to wartime Nova Scotia and appeared at the opening of a Royal Canadian Navy recreation complex in Halifax. A game between local seamen and personnel stationed in Toronto was interrupted so Babe could put on a hitting display. Local legend had it he homered on every swing. In truth, Ruth, now 47 and wearing street shoes and a cream-colored suit, failed to knock a single ball out of the park. The 5,000 in attendance had to be satisfied with the dozen or so autographed baseballs Babe tossed into the crowd. One is still in the collection of the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame.

Havana served for many years as something of a playground for the idle wealthy of the United States, as often as not those of New York, particularly during the Prohibition years (1920-1933), when alcohol was banned in by an amendment to the US Constitution. It was a major tourist mecca and attracted a large number of American entertainers, gamblers, gangsters, and businessmen prepared to exploit the Cuban citizenry and make as much money as they could.

That very first year of Prohibition – the 18th Amendment was ratified in January 1919 and went into effect one year later – Babe Ruth was in his first year at a member of the Yankees, and he hit a previously unfathomable 54 home runs (more than any other entire team in the major leagues save the Phillies, who hit 64 as a team.)1

As motion-picture newsreels became a widely available form of entertainment and information, Ruth and many other figures in sports, from baseball to boxing, and in other realms from music to the movies, were becoming true national celebrities. John McGraw’s New York Giants had already been booked to play a number of postseason exhibition games in Cuba. But “[w]ith money to spare and ambitions that knew no limits, Cuban impresarios wanted to cash in on the new phenomenon and invited the Babe to display his talents as a Giant at Almendares Park.”2

Cuba was at the time living in a period known as the “Vacas Gordas” (Fat Cows), mainly helped by the postwar boom reached with the sale of sugar, highly priced worldwide. This enabled Cuban entrepreneur Abel Linares to hire the slugger so that he could play nine games with the New York Giants, offering him an almost staggering 2,000 US dollars per game.3 His salary for the full 1920 season is believed to have been $20,000. At the time, the Cuban peso and the US dollar had an exchange rate of one-for-one.

The Bambino’s exploits were very well known in Cuba already, and his presence in the games (most of them to be played in the new Moderno Almendares Park) would definitely draw a lot of fans to the game, even though they would mostly be cheering against him and the Giants.4

It wasn’t just coincidence that the Giants of the day often played preseason games in Havana. John McGraw owned the Oriental Racetrack there, in partnership with team owner Horace Stoneham. He’d first visited the island when it was still a Spanish colony, in 1890. The Oriental Racetrack property also embraced a restaurant, a small hotel called the Cuban American Jockey Club, and a casino.5 The property was acquired during October 1919, the very month that gambling interests corrupted a number of the Chicago White Sox into throwing the 1919 World Series.

Ruth reportedly lost most of the money he was paid while “gambling at jai alai and other games.”6

The Giants departed by train from New York’s Penn Station on October 12 and arrived in Havana by ship from Key West on October 15, staying at the Hotel Plaza, just in time to play the “American Series” from October 16 through November 28.

Ruth himself didn’t arrive until October 29, in time to play the ninth game in the series the following day. He came with his first wife, Helen, and they also stayed at the Hotel Plaza, across from Parque Central in Havana, at the corner of Zulueta and Neptuno. Nearly 100 years later, the Plaza still serves as a hotel and has a plaque outside of the room where the Ruths stayed. The Babe also visited the famous Sloppy Joe’s Bar, opened in 1917, a block away from the hotel – the bar holds pictures of the famous people who have visited it, including Hall of Famer Ted Williams.

The costs of travel and accommodations for the Ruths were covered by Linares. The fee paid to Ruth to play was reportedly more than all of his teammates combined.7

 

 

Ruth’s first game was on October 30. Research done by Cuban researcher and historian Jose Antonio “Tony” Perez in the pages of the Havana newspaper El Mundo indicates that Ruth played center field and doubled and tripled in the game, won by the Giants over Habana, 4-3. The losing pitcher was Oscar Tuero; both Jose Acosta and Lefty Stewart worked in relief. The winning pitcher was Pol Perritt.

Ruth’s second game saw Rosy Ryan of the Giants shut out Almendares, 3-0, on October 31. Ruth singled and tripled off Emilio Palmero. In the sixth inning, Palmero struck out the Babe on three consecutive fastballs. When he got back to the bench, a very impressed Ruth reportedly proclaimed, “Where did the Cubans find that guy? He could pitch for any team.”8

After two days off – Ruth was reportedly engaged with Havana’s nightlife – Moderno Almendares Park witnessed the Giants’ third victory, when Perritt again subdued Habana on November 3, holding them to one run and five hits, while Acosta and Tuero surrendered seven runs and nine hits; Acosta bore the loss.) Each team made two errors, and it happened to be Ruth’s worst day at the plate; he was struck out by Acosta in all three at-bats, although he got on base a fourth time and scored one run.

On November 4 it was Almendares again. The Giants prevailed in a slugfest, 10-8. Each team had 14 hits and made three errors. Ryan got the win and Palmero bore the loss. Ruth was 2-for-3 at the plate, with a single and a double, and also pitched an uneventful inning.

The November 6 game was a remarkable one. Ruth played first base and again pitched briefly. He was 0-for-3. The real story, though, was provided by another Hall of Famer. “Cuban slugger Cristobal Torriente had stolen [Ruth’s] thunder by clouting three mammoth round-trippers in a memorable afternoon” – one of the homers reportedly hit off Babe Ruth, who pitched briefly in that game.9 Torriente was voted into Cooperstown in 2006. The summary of his career on the Hall of Fame website begins: “‘The Black Babe Ruth’ was the nickname Torriente acquired in the fall of 1920. … Torriente outhit and out-homered Ruth in the series.”10

Torriente later played several years for the Chicago American Giants (and a final season with the Detroit Stars) of the Negro National League. After the November 6 game, he was presented with 400 cigars, a gold watch, and 103 pesos in cash collected on the field during the day.

The Havana newspaper El Día presciently reported, “Yesterday, Cristobal Torriente elevated himself to the greatest heights of glory and popularity. His hitting will enter Cuban baseball history as one of its most brilliant pages.”

Gonzalez Echevarria’s account was more sanguine than Figueredo’s. The score was indisputably 11-4 in Almendares’ favor, but he readily confesses, “I was genuinely sad to discover that the facts did not quite square with the myth.” As he reports, “The story goes that on this day Torriente outdueled Ruth by blasting three home runs, while the American idol could only muster one. The facts are as follows: Babe Ruth did not get a hit that day, and while Torriente got three homers and a double, the homers were against Highpockets Kelly, the Giant first baseman, who had pitched one game in relief three seasons earlier. The double was against the Babe himself, who had taken the mound for an inning as a stunt. … The inescapable truth is that Torriente’s feat was accomplished against a first baseman and a former pitcher and in a kind of holiday spirit – almost a carnival atmosphere. Furthermore, it is not clear from contemporary accounts if Torriente’s homers actually went over the far-flung fences of Almendares Park. All three went to left or left-center, where the dimensions [are] each six hundred feet, but the only thing the newspaper story says is that the balls went over the fielders’ head.”11 Some of the Giants, according to Diario de la Marina sportswriter Ramon S. Mendoza, were descompuestos (politely suggesting they appeared to be hung over thanks to excess alcohol consumption.) Catcher Earl Smith, for instance, had four passed balls in the game.

Peter Bjarkman endorses this conclusion, in effect underscoring the same research: “A local press account cited by González Echevarría suggests that Giants pitchers were not taking most of the games on the tour very seriously, were in truth lobbing ‘batting practice tosses’ at the Almendares hitters, and were at any rate probably on the day of Torriente’s heroics still feeling the effects of excessive partying the previous night.”12

Much of the partying was undoubtedly done at McGraw’s casino. Of the “American Series,” Charles Alexander wrote, “For once McGraw didn’t seem to take baseball seriously. The major-leaguers won most of the time, lost a few, and had plenty of fun at McGraw’s and Stoneham’s racetrack and casino. Playing before big crowds, the ballplayers did well financially, most of all Ruth. At least until the croupiers and assorted con artists got through with him, by which time he had little left of the $20,000 or so he’d gained from the trip.”13 One contemporary report, a lengthy summary in The Sporting News, said Ruth had lost $35,000 at the race track and that “the Cubans also stung him hard in a big crap game, and he returned to the States solely because he was broke.”14

The next day, on November 7, Ruth was 2-for-3 – both hits were singles – against Stewart of Habana. Ruth was back in center field, where he played for the remainder of the games.

His first home run came during a 6-5 loss to Almendares on November 8, an inside-the-park home run. He was “safe at the plate by inches.”15

Gonzalez Echeverria says that Diario de la Marina’s Mendoza reported the ball “went to the corner between the end of ‘sol’ and the center-field wall or scoreboard” and “may well have been the longest homer ever hit at Almendares Park; a rough estimate would be about 550 feet.”16

There were then three days off. On November 12 the two teams played to a 3-3, eight-inning tie game, which was called due to darkness. Ruth was 0-for-4.

On the 14th the Babe collected his second home run, against Almendares in a 7-3 Giants win. He was 1-for-2. This one perhaps cleared the fence; Tony Perez, historian Dr. Oscar Fernandez, and longtime SABR member Ismael Sene have all told Reynaldo Cruz that one of Ruth’s homers cleared the fence and it was the only homer to clear the fence in the whole series.

New York was outmatched by Adolfo Luque’s Almendares team but beat Habana handily. Seventeen games in all were played, with New York posting records vs. Almendares of 2-4 (with three ties), and vs. Habana of 6-1 (with one tie.) There was one game played against an All-Cubans team, which ended in a 2-2 tie.17

The contingent moved to Santiago de Cuba, where Juan Lageyre paid the Bambino $3,000 for two games in Cuba Park of the eastern city. However, most of the Giants team sat out the game, and The Sultan of Swat made up a “Babe Ruth” team with Rosy Ryan and himself, along with a group of Cubans. They were whitewashed, 4-0, by Pablo Guillen (a pitcher who never played professionally and had a slow ball) and the Santiago team, which scored all of its runs in the third inning. Playing first base, Ruth went 1-for-3. According to the local newspaper in Santiago, Guillen struck out Ruth three times in a row.18

His stay in Santiago de Cuba was not as rewarding as he had anticipated. He bet on the horses at Oriental Park, gambling at jai alai matches and in casinos as well, in the night and in the mornings as well. He lost all his money betting and returned to Havana with only 40 cents in his wallet.19

Linares himself was understood to have made $40,000 in profits on the tour and to have “elevated Cuban baseball…to a new prominence.”20

The New York Times summarized Ruth’s reception in Cuba: “They liked the Babe down there in the land of tobacco, sugar and skimmed milk. He was greeted with uproarious applause constantly, although his prowess as a slugger was seldom on display. He made only two of his far-famed circuit smashes in the whole series.”21

The Sporting News quoted Ruth as saying the fences in the Havana ballpark “are not made for home runs,” though noting that Torriente had hit three in one game. The paper wrote, “The Babe hit a lot of mighty drives but the fielders played in the next county for him and gathered the most of them in. Two homers were all he got in the ten games he played as a member of the Giants.” Ruth stayed on, having signed a new contract to play in 10 more games with a Cuban team.22

Ruth was less than politically correct when he declaimed on the ballparks in Cuba: “Oh, they’re punk. The fence is four blocks from home plate, and them greasers expect you to knock it over every time.” About the country in general, he said, “It’s a great place. … The kids used to chase me all over the island calling me Bobbie Ruth.” But he added, disparagingly, of Torriente in particular, “Them greasers are punk ball players. Only a few of them are any good. This guy they calls after me because he made a few homers is as black as a ton and a half of coal in a dark cellar. I guess I’ll go back to Cuba next winter.”23

The Washington Post reported that, despite just the two home runs, Ruth had hit for a .345 average, with three triples, three doubles, and two singles, and scored five runs. He struck out six times.24 Figures compiled by Jose Antonio Perez agree, crediting him with 11 RBIs, 11 walks, two stolen bases, and one sacrifice bunt.25

In late November, Ruth wrote to Miller Huggins from Havana that he hoped for an even better regular season in 1921 than he had enjoyed in 1920. He noted that he had missed a number of games in 1920 but that by playing winter ball in Cuba he would be in “perfect trim” and that, furthermore, he wasn’t going to mess with acting in motion pictures: “I am fully convinced that my batting eye was injured by the strong light of the movie studio, and I’m not going to let those fellows cheat me out of any more home runs.”26 However he may have prepared for the 1921 season, it paid off. He played in almost every game and hit 59 home runs.

Ruth visited Cuba only that one time to play baseball. Andres Pascual says he returned in 1921 to “engage in what would become a dangerous hobby for him: the horse races in Oriental Park.”27

Sources

Thanks to Tony Perez for compiling figures on the 1920 visit of the New York Giants – and Ruth – to Cuba. Thanks to Jane Leavy for loaning the pamphlet “The Bambino Visits Cuba.”

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the authors also consulted a number of biographies of Babe Ruth, including:

Creamer, Robert. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992).

Leavy, Jane. The Big Fella (New York: HarperCollins, 2018).

Montville, Leigh. The Big Bam (New York: Doubleday, 2006).

Wehrle, Edmund F. Breaking Babe Ruth (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2018).