I WAS BABE RUTH'S BAT BOY
"Like the great showman he was, Babe Ruth did the most ordinary things with a grand flourish. He was pretty fast with a buck, too. One afternoon the Yankees were in their New York clubhouse, following a deluge which necessitated the calling of the game in the third inning. Ruth was one of the first to shower and dress, eager to get away. But the rain was falling in torrents and the yard outside the clubhouse was flooded with several inches of water.
Unable to contain himself any longer, Babe yelled to some of the players just coming out of the showers, 'I'll give any of you $25 to run out, just as you are, and get my car for me.' Ruth's car was inside a parking space inside the Polo Grounds about 50 yards from the clubhouse.
For a moment there were no takers. Then Truck Hannah, the Yankees' first-string catcher that year, spoke up: 'Babe, I'll get your car for you if you'll let me wear my athletic supporter.' To which the Babe replied, 'You'd be practically dressed then. In that case, I'll give you 15 bucks.' With no more on him than Adam after partaking of the forbidden fruit, Truck dashed out into the rainstorm. In a few minutes, Ruth's flashy, yellow roadster (I think it was a Stutz) drove up to the clubhouse door. Hannah dashed from the car into the clubhouse. Amid convulsive laughter, the $15 changed hands.
On another occasion there was the incident which, in my opinion, marked the beginning of the end of the Babe's playboy career and launched him into that period in which he became aware of the important place he occupied in professional baseball and of the responsibilities that went with it. The scene was the clubhouse in Yankee Stadium following the conclusion of the Yankees' dismal 1925 season. Babe came in, walked over to his locker and took out a small package. Then he went over to Doc Woods' rubbing table, near which rested a wastepaper receptacle, and started to tear to bits the contents of a package, which proved to be canceled checks. And aloud, to no one in particular but in a voice tinged with regret and resignation, the Babe sighed, 'Here goes $100,000 on the bangtails.'
How do I know about these incidents? I was there. I was bat boy for the Yankees in the early Twenties when the Babe, Bob Meusel, Home Run Baker, Ping Bodie, Wally Pipp, Duffy Lewis, Wally Schang and others were striking terror in the hearts of opposing pitchers.
This gang was the first Yankees' Murderers' Row. Others followed in the years to come. In all of them, Ruth's big bat was the most fearsome menace to opposing teams.
The awesome renown of this fabulous crew is captured with classic clarity in a story that's been making the rounds for years. After Waite Hoyt left the Yankee organization, for whom he had been a great pitcher, he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates. One afternoon the Chicago Cubs belabored him unmercifully, both with their bats and tongues.
Hoyt took the riding for just so long. Then, stepping off the mound in dramatic fashion, he headed straight for the Cubs' dugout. He scornfully ran his eyes up and down the bench. Then he snapped: 'You guys better shut up or I'll put on my old Yankee uniform and scare the hell out of you!'
As Bat Boy of the Yankees, a little of their glamor rubbed off on me. On a modified scale, I became what a later generation was to know as a V.I.P. In school the teachers treated me with kid gloves and it wasn't at all unusual to be asked by one of them in a joking, but nevertheless serious way to get him a baseball autographed by Babe Ruth.
I was a scrawny 110-pounder when I tried out for catcher on the DeWitt Clinton High School team in New York, but the coach showed me every courtesy and gave me every opportunity to show my wares. Around the block, I was much sought after as a friend by the other kids.
How did I get the job? Opportunity ... grabbing the Big Chance ... luck ... and a dash of Horatio Alger, in which the honest boy makes good.
It was during school vacation in the summer of 1919 that I got a 'position' as a turnstile boy at the Polo Grounds where the Yankees, as well as the Giants, were then playing their home games. My job was to regulate the turnstile as the fans passed through. The most attractive feature of the job, in addition to the 25 cents a day I got, was that the turnstile boys were allowed to knock off work at the end of the first or second inning, depending on the size of the crowd, and then had the privilege of a seat in the grandstand to watch the rest of the game.
One day, while watching the Yankees play after my stint as turnstile boy, I noticed that Home Run Baker, the Yankees' third baseman and, before Ruth, the most renowned home run hitter in the big leagues, had left his glove on the field after leaving the diamond in the ninth inning with the Yankees, for once, far behind. Since the Yankees would not take the field again unless the score was tied, I realized that Baker had forgotten his glove and, by golly, I was going to get it.
I was waiting for the Yankees to retire the side in much the same way a sprinter waits for the bark of a gun. The third out was the signal for me to dash out on the field, headed straight for the glove. To my dismay, I was not alone. Several also were racing madly for the glove. I must have gotten a good start for I reached the glove first and pounced on it. It was mine!
Next morning I read that some fan had run off with Baker's glove and how much Baker would miss it because it would take a long time for him to break in a new one. As much as I wanted to keep the glove- it had such a nice pocket, it was so nicely oiled and it had belonged to Home Run Baker, semi-divine to me- I was overcome with remorse. Prompted by my conscience, I hied myself to the Polo Grounds.
Phil Schenck, who was in charge of the Yankee clubhouse in the Polo Grounds and who later was head groundkeeper at Yankee Stadium, greeted me when I entered the clubhouse. He looked at me in amazement, and called out, 'Hey, Woody, come here. Some kid just brought in Frank's glove.'
Albert A. 'Doc' Woods, the Yankee trainer, came over, didn't say a word, but just fixed his eyes on me. I was half-scared to death at the thought of what he was going to do with me- you know, police, prison and so on. He scrutinized me for a long moment and finally spoke, 'You look like a nice, honest kid. We could use you around here. Do you want a job?'
Within two weeks after accepting a job of very minor importance, but with the high sounding title of general field assistant to Doc Woods, I was promoted to the most important job in a kid's world- bat boy for the New York Yankees.
For a kid to run about the Polo Grounds with the ball players was like being permitted to romp on Olympus with the gods. As soon as the wonder of it began to wear off, I felt thoroughly at home with the very same fellows who, only several weeks previously, were just as heroically grand and remote as those Greek gods on Olympus. In fact, many of the players began calling me by my first name or nickname, Allie.
One of my big disappointments, however, was that Babe Ruth, in the six years I knew him, never called me by name. The Babe had a very poor memory for names, and to him I was always 'Kid' or 'Hey, you.' However, I shouldn't have felt too badly about it, because Ruth hardly could remember the names of the fellows who played on the same team with him. They often joked about it among themselves.
In 1921 I was replaced as Yankee bat boy by hunchbacked Eddie Bennett. A mature, gnomish-looking chap, Eddie was signed because he was supposed to bring good luck- presumably resident in his hunchback. At any rate, he apparently had brought good luck and the pennant to the Chicago White Sox for whom he previously worked.
Bennett was in every sense a professional bat boy. He was under contract, he drew a salary, he had to be dressed in uniform on the field, and he accompanied the team on the road. I was none of these things when I was a bat boy. I was simon-pure- an amateur. I had done the same work but drew no salary. I wore my street clothes on the field. I did not travel with the team. So when Doc Woods retained me as his field assistant on Bennett's assumption of the bat boy job, I wasn't out a thing except the title.
To be fair to Woody and the Yankees, I did draw some type of compensation for my work, both as bat boy and as field assistant. My salary was a baseball, which Doc Woods gave me in the clubhouse after each game. There was always something humorous about the little ceremony that attended the 'receipt' of my salary. Doc Woods would reach into his ball bag and take out ball after ball, scrutinizing each one carefully to find the one with the least number of blemishes on it. I never could figure out why he didn't give me a brand new ball and let it go at that. But since he didn't, I was glad to get the next best thing- a ball that was clean and in good condition. I would make as much as ten dollars a week, a fine salary in the early Twenties, selling the balls to diamond enthusiasts in Central Park, near where I lived.
That was not all the money that I earned in my capacity as an amateur bat boy or field assistant to Doc Woods. I supplemented my income with tips I got running errands for the players. Usually the errands were to a neighboring sandwich shop to purchase light lunches for the players. It didn't take long for us kids around the clubhouse to realize that tipping was not practiced by all the Yankees. Some didn't even extend a 'thank you.' Ruth proved the most generous tipper.
As protection against the non-tippers, we kids worked out a scheme which, unfortunately, operated against the tippers as well. Without taking the players into our confidence, we set up what we called a service charge for each item of lunch. We would charge a player 15 cents for items that cost us a dime, etc.
Of course, there were other compensations for being bat boy of the Yankees. I frequently accompanied the players to movies and shows to which they were invited as guests. When Tex Rickard invited the Yankees as his guests to the Dempsey-Firpo fight at the Polo Grounds, I went along as Coach Charley O'Leary's 'grandson.'
I must tell you something about the husky young man who reported to the Yankees in 1923, fresh from Columbia University. I was in the clubhouse when this tall, big-shouldered, dimple-cheeked, handsome chap came in and was shown a locker.
Though a college man, he didn't appear to have the polish and savvy of one. His pants were baggy. He didn't wear the vest, which was in high fashion then, and his coat jacket was unbuttoned- more because of his big chest and shoulders than because of any disdain for style. None of the players took much notice of him. To them, he was just another kid who had joined the mad scramble to break into professional ball. He might and he might not have 'what it takes.'
To me, however, this green, awkward giant had it. His name and fame as a home run hitter at the High School of Commerce was already a legend to every high school kid in New York City, of which I was one. I went over and greeted him by name and introduced myself. We walked out to the field together, but once there he didn't seem to know what to do. He appeared shy. Charley O'Leary yelled to him, 'Hey, Gehrig, get up there and take a few cuts.'
Boom! The first ball Gehrig hit roared deep into the right-field bleachers. I was standing at the batting cage watching him take his cuts. Near me was Frank 'Lefty' O'Doul, who was destined to become one of the finest hitters in history, but who, at that time, was a fleet-footed, jovial kid who thought he was a left-handed pitcher. I heard Lefty, who was then with the Boston Red Sox and had come out to the park early, say, 'I never saw the Babe hit one that far up there.' Gehrig hit a couple more into the bleachers, and I gathered from the buzzing among the players that they were very much impressed.
Lou Gehrig, the green rookie, and I, the kid assistant to Doc Woods, became fast friends. And it is with pleasure I recall that I was on the scene at the Yankee Stadium in June, 1925, when Gehrig pinch-hit for Peewee Wanninger, the Yankee shortstop, to begin his unprecedented streak of playing in 2,130 consecutive games.
At the end of 1925, I quit my job with the Yankees. I was now completing my freshman year at Columbia, Gehrig's alma mater, and I felt that I had outgrown the work I was doing. But I had learned a lot of baseball in my years as bat boy and general handyman, skills which began to pay dividends in college and which, in June, 1928, led me back to my old haunts in the Polo Grounds.
However, I was returning in a different capacity- not as a kid carrying the bats, but with the hope that some kid would by carrying MY bat! I was reporting to Manager John J. McGraw for a trial as a catcher for the Giants. I was recommended by Andy Coakley, my baseball coach at Columbia who had recommended Gehrig to the Yanks.
It was quite a thrill to be greeted by Fred Logan, the clubhouse man, with whom I had worked for many years and knew intimately. Fred showed me to my locker in which hung a nicely laundered, gray road uniform with the classic name 'Giants' embroidered across the chest. I was very proud as I walked across the field for my first workout.
But I didn't tarry long in the old pastures. McGraw, who preferred his catchers big and brawny like Pancho Snyder, didn't think I was big enough to be a major league catcher. Maybe he was right. I only weighed 135 pounds. In any event, the experience was a big moment in my life.
Which leads up to the 'last chapter.' In 1935 I was coaching the baseball team at Richmond Hills High School in Queens, New York. I had a little fellow playing shortstop who could do better than the best I had seen around short in my bat boy days with the Yankees. This little chap could hit; he could throw; he could bunt; he [could] field; he had oomph!
I tried time and time again to line up a pro job for my small protege, but he was always turned down because of his size. In 1937 I approached Ed Barrow, general manager of the Yankees. He was not interested in my small player. Undaunted, I made a vigorous appeal, comparing my 'midget' to that other highly talented little shortstop- Rabbit Maranville. Mr. Barrow became interested. He asked for the kid's name and address. Shortly after my talk with Barrow, the Mitey Atom was signed to a Yankee farm contract.
It was thus the former bat boy of the Yankees was instrumental in bringing to his old team one of the greatest players the Yankees have ever had- little Phil Rizzuto!"
-Alfred Kunitz, Baseball Digest, August 1953
Alfred Kunitz is at present director of athletics at Rhodes School, New York, and chairman of the physical education department at the High School of Music and Art, New York.
-Baseball Digest, August 1953
