"Most everybody remembers Babe Ruth as a moon-faced, barrel-chested hulk of a man with spindly legs. Indeed, Babe's rotund countenance was his trademark. There really were many different Ruths in physical appearance, but the round moon face was prominent in all of them, even to his death when it was lined and ravaged by illness. Babe was always outsize- he was called 'Big George' at St. Mary's when he was only fifteen.
Babe had a big head- physically that is. He customarily affected a cap, preferably a brown-camel-haired one, because hats looked silly on him. Once Ruth realized that his home runs gave him special privileges, that the rules of ordinary ball players weren't for him, the first thing he did was discard hats and take to a cap.
Much has been made of his pipe-stemmed legs which supported Ruth's Gargantuan body. Their thinness was accentuated by the bay window Ruth accumulated in later years. The longer Babe played, the more people went to see him and Ruth played until he was past forty. He was in his thirty-third year when he collected his record-breaking sixty home runs in 1927. As a consequence, there is a tendency to exaggerate his spindle-shanked qualities. Had Ruth bothered to keep his weight down to normal he wouldn't have looked so much like an egg balanced on two straws.
Ruth's batting style was as distinctive as his build. He took a batting style with his feet close together, his body swiveled slightly so that he was looking at the pitcher over his right shoulder. His feet were about four inches apart and his right foot was about an inch closer to home plate than his left. He stood to the rear of the batter's box but not especially deep, being almost on a line with the plate.
As is true with all good hitters, the Babe had exceptional reflexes and muscular co-ordination. He took a big stride forward with his right foot, planted his back leg firmly, swung forward on a level plane, snapping his wrists into the swing at the moment of impact and pulling the club head 'through' the ball. He held the bat long, the nob at the small end gripped in his right hand. The force of his follow-through often sent him sprawling when he missed the ball. There was grace and effortless power in his swing when he hit the ball.
Some say Ruth's swing was patterned after that of Shoeless Joe Jackson. The Babe admitted they swung alike and that, when he noticed that, he began to watch Jackson at every opportunity because of the great distance Joe got from his drives against the dead ball. Although Ruth had an instinct for baseball, it is safe to assume that at least 95 per cent of his talents were God-given, particularly his remarkable vision.
With all of his home runs, Ruth was a scientific batter as well as a swinger. He was a better than average bunter and when the defense overshifted against him, as the Cardinals did in the 1946 World Series against Ted Williams, Babe took advantage of the inviting gaps by shortening up and punching the ball to the opposite field. Most of the time the Babe swung from his heels but he could bunt, punch or drag a ball if the defense played him out of position.
Down in Georgia's Glynn County in the Dover Hill hunting camp of Uncle Robbie, Til Huston, George Stallings and other baseball figures, the prowess of Ruth as a Nimrod was renowned. He was a phenomenal wing shot, a tireless hunter who could tramp in the pine woods for hours and a prodigious eater and drinker. And this was in a league where a normal eater and drinker would have been looked upon as a dilettante.
Moe Berg, the Princetonian who came into baseball in 1923 as a shortstop and remained on as a catcher and coach until Pearl Harbor when he entered the OSS, was a student of baseball as he is of life. Remarkably observant, Berg made the statement that Ruth was the only hitter he ever saw who didn't shorten his grip with two strikes against him. Taking the precaution of moving the hands up a little on the handle of the bat was the regular procedure for even the best of hitters, except Ruth.
'I never found out whether Babe didn't know he had two strikes on him,' remarked Moe, 'or whether he didn't care.'"
-Tom Meany, Baseball's Greatest Hitters (Baseball Digest, June 1950)
THE INDIANS WALKED KOENIG TO PITCH TO RUTH
And They Got Away With It!
"Tris Speaker, Cleveland Indian manager of the 1920's, asked if the writer ever heard of passing anyone intentionally to get at Babe Ruth.
'Certainly not,' was the answer. 'Speaking of things that never happened.'
'Don't be so sure,' laughed Spoke. 'Maybe it only happened once, but it sure happened. We were in the ninth inning one day, leading the Yankees by one run, but they had the tying run on second base.
'Mark Koenig was the batter and George Uhle the pitcher. Ruth was on deck. Out in center field, I didn't think anything unusual was going on when Uhle's first pitch was a low curve for a ball. But when the second was two feet outside, I decided it was time to have a talk with George.
'Are you nuts?' I asked him. 'Make this fellow hit the ball. Don't you know the gentleman who will be up next if you walk Koenig?'
''Uhle said, 'Tris, I'd rather pitch to Koenig any time. I thought I'd try to get Mark out on a bad pitch, but if I can walk him I'll still be all right. I can take care of the big fellow.'
''Okay,' I told him, 'but if that's the way you feel about it let's tell Ruth.' I walked toward home plate and motioned O'Neill out of the catcher's box. 'We're putting him on, Steve,' I said. 'George would rather pitch to Ruth.'
'The big fellow's neck turned purple and he really was cutting when he stepped to the plate. George gave him two curves on the inside and he fouled them over the stands in right. Then he worked the count to three and two. George broke off a beautiful curve. The Babe started to lunge at it, then tried to hold his swing, but it didn't make any difference. The umpire yelled strike three.
'In the clubhouse, everyone was slapping Uhle on the back and some of the boys even thought I must be a great manager for figuring out strategy like that. But when the room quieted down, I called Uhle over to my locker.
''George,' I said, 'that was terrific. But please do me a favor. Never try it again. I don't want to have a heart attack in center field. And I'll never come closer than I did while you were pitching to that big guy.'"
-Ed McAuley, Cleveland News (Baseball Digest, August 1950)
No comments:
Post a Comment