THE BABE COULD REALLY PITCH
Ruth Finished Record Series String With Swollen Hand
"Most everyone remembers Babe Ruth as a moon-faced, barrel-chested man who swished the biggest bat in the history of baseball. Few seem to remember that he was a great pitcher.
One of the pitching records he set still stands. He pitched, and won, the longest World Series game yet played, a 2-1 fourteen-inning contest over the Dodgers in 1916. That was his first appearance as a World Series pitcher, and he pitched scoreless ball after throwing a home run to Hi Myers in the first inning.
He was a southpaw with a good fast ball, a curve and control. Babe came up to the Red Sox as a pitcher and might have remained one if Ed Barrow, then manager at Boston but later the 'brain' of the Yankee organization, hadn't converted him into an outfielder. Barrow was a businessman and a fan. He knew that Pitcher Ruth's swats meant box office.
Barrow also admitted that he liked watching the big boy belt a ball out of the park. This he could try to do six, seven times a week. As a pitcher, Babe was restricted.
In the 1918 Series it was the Cubs versus the Red Sox. That was a war year, of course, and travel was difficult and attendance low. But in the opener at Chicago, Ruth outpitched Big Jim Vaughn and took a 1-0 victory before less than 20,000. With his 13 shutout frames in the 1916 Series, Babe now had a streak of 22 scoreless innings in that company.
Babe ran it to 29 scoreless innings- one more than Christy Mathewson- when he registered a 3-2 victory in the fourth game.
Even in those days, when Babe was merely a fine pitcher and not Mr. Baseball, the big guy did it the hard way. He wasn't in shape for that 3-2 triumph.
On the train from Chicago he got into a scuffle with a third-string pitcher and scraped the knuckles of his left hand against the steel wall of the car. Overnight, his middle finger was swollen to twice normal size. But even with this handicap, Ruth pitched shutout ball until the eighth inning, when his fabulous streak was ended with the Cubs scoring two runs.
At this point, Manager Barrow made a move that today seems incongruous. He relieved Ruth, placed him in left field, and called Bullet Joe Bush to do the pitching. Squeakingly, Bush prevailed and so ended the World Series.
That Ruth was a great pitcher can be verified by the records. It's only later that he was such a prodigious slugger that his pitching talents were unremembered.
He was only a kid when he was pitching those great World Series games. As he grew older- and he played until he was past 40- Babe reached the top and started downhill, as do all mortals.
He was 32 when he smacked those 60 homers in 1927. When he felt like it, and when he was at his peak, he was a very sure-handed and agile outfielder. His arm was strong and accurate. Babe was smart and he stole bases with neat slides.
As he grew older and his bay window increased, Ruth was no longer the agile outfielder. He rarely, if ever, threw to a wrong base, but his arm wasn't so terrifying to runners.
Once in a while he would play first base and usually he was so dexterous for a large person that he drew admiration.
He was all that could be asked for in a first baseman, even one who hit only 20 or 30 home runs a season.
But don't forget that he was first a pitcher. And a very, very good one."
-Francis Stann, The Washington Star (Baseball Digest, March 1958)
THE BABE'S HOMER ON AN INFIELD FLY!
Waite Hoyt Recalls It As "Funniest," Says Mantle Good, But Decries Comparisons
"There's a radio announcer who thinks Mickey Mantle couldn't carry Babe Ruth's bat. Of course, the radio announcer, whose name is Waite Hoyt, could be slightly prejudiced because he was Ruth's teammate on those great Yankee teams of the Golden Twenties.
Hoyt is a broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds these days and is in great demand as an after-dinner speaker. The reason is obvious. Hoyt is a glib man with a great baseball background and, of course, he played with the legend known as Ruth.
'It amuses me,' he says, 'to hear people compare Mantle and Ruth. Why, in my estimation, Mantle isn't even a good outfielder. Ruth did everything well. He was a great hitter, a great fielder and a great leader.
'I note that a lot of stars like to duck exhibition games. Not Ruth. He loved to play ball and he played just as hard in the tank towns as he did before a packed house in Yankee Stadium.
'The Babe was a kind man, too. I remember when I came to the great Yankees as a pitcher, I took my cue from Babe. He never brushed off a fan. He had time for everybody and he'd sign autographs by the hour, literally. Lou Gehrig used to go center field to hide, but Babe liked to be the center of attention and he loved people.
'Mantle undoubtedly is a good ball player. In my mind, nobody can touch Ruth as a hitter, except perhaps Ted Williams. But Mantle can't compare with Ruth. Mickey hits them a mile? Ruth used to hit them two miles. Why, he's the only man I ever saw who got a home run on an infield fly.'
How was that again, Waite? Bucky Harris once told a story of how Ruth hit a towering infield fly for a triple. But a homer?
'Yes, a homer,' Waite insisted. We (the Yankees) were playing the Red Sox and there was a high wind coming in from left field. The left fielder, the third baseman, the shortstop and center fielder all raced for the pop fly. We thought the ball had been shot out of a cannon. The thing kept climbing and climbing while Ruth kept racing around the bags.
'Finally, the ball started to come down. I guess the Babe was already almost to third base by this time. In trying for the ball, everybody was jostling everybody else and the ball touched nobody while Babe scored. It was the funniest home run he ever hit in his career.'
Hoyt says that Babe Ruth did call his now-famous homer against Charlie Root, against the Chicago Cubs, in the 1932 World Series, and it was no accident.
'Why,' Waite continued, 'I saw him do it at least four times. We were in Boston at one time and Babe and Gehrig were all tied up in homers. The Boston fans were riding Babe, or at least one was. He was on Ruth all through the game. Well, Babe fanned the first two times and the loud-mouth got louder.
'The third time Ruth came up, he stepped out of the box, faced the fan. And pointed his bat to right field. Then he hit the next pitch for a home run. He rounded the bases, landed on home with both feet, took off his cap and made a sweeping, cavalier bow. He was a great showman with it all and I always felt it was stealing money just being allowed to play with him.'
Hoyt says there is one lamentable lack in modern ball players, and that is a failure to take a former hero as an idol.
'Ted Williams is the only one who asks questions about old-timers, 'Waite continued. 'He wants to know everything about Ruth, Gehrig and some of the other great hitters of the past. Maybe that's why he's a great hitter himself.'
-Bob Addie, the Washington Post (Baseball Digest, June 1958)
