NewMexiKen read Leigh Montville’s new, excellent The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth over the past few days. Recommended for anyone interested in America’s greatest sports legend.
In light of Barry Bonds’ approach to Ruth’s career home run mark (714), two Ruth home run stories. First, the third inning of the first game ever in Yankee Stadium, 1923:
“The fans were on their feet yelling and waving and throwing scorecards and half-consumed frankfurters,” van Loon wrote, “bellowing unto high heaven that the Babe was the greatest man on earth, the the Babe was some kid, and that the Babe could have their last and bottom dollar, together with the mortgage on their house, their wives and furniture.”
The Yankees won the game, 4-1, Ruth’s homer the difference. For the rest of his life, when asked about the home runs he had hit, he always would say this was his favorite. Theater never merged better with sport. He gave ’em exactly what they wanted when they wanted it.
And, his last:
This was homer number 714, the third of the day, the last of a career. The Pittsburgh crowd of 10,000, not knowing the exact implications of what it had seen but knowing this was pretty darn good, applauded as he left the game. He was Babe Ruth, dammit. … He never had another major league hit.
Ruth played over 22 seasons (1914-1935) and appeared in 10 World Series. He was 40 when he retired. He died of cancer at age 53 in 1948. Most of his life he thought he was a year older than he was.