1953 Yankee of the Past: Branch Rickey

RICKEY'S FLOPPING! HE'S LOST TOUCH
1953 May Be His Last Year
"When Branch Rickey, Sr., moved to Pittsburgh in October, 1950, to take over as generalissimo of the disorganized Pittsburgh forces, he uttered for the benefit of the press:
'This is the greatest challenge I have faced in my more than 40 years in baseball.'
A little more than two years later this heretofore highly successful man is still wrestling with his 'greatest challenge,' apparently on his way to the worst setback of his career.
The Pittsburgh problem has turned out to be much tougher than what the Mahatma bargained for. It threw him for a loss in his first year (1951) when the Pirates managed to finish seventh. It pinned him for a second straight fall in 1952 when the most woeful looking conglomeration of so-called big league ball players staggered home last, 22 1/2 games behind the seventh place Braves. The third and last fall is coming up soon.
Through it all, the 71-year-old Rickey remains optimistic, the same double-talking champion of the major leagues. Failure and the 'emotions of defeat' which he abhor still embrace him, yet he continues to promise Pittsburgh fans a first division ball club 'within the very near future.'
It was also his promise when he first moved to Pittsburgh in 1950 that within three years 'the Pirates would be in a position to challenge for the pennant.' In 1953, his 'third year,' the only challenge sober-minded Pittsburghers can look forward to is a challenge to get out of the cellar, a long shot possibility at best.
Despite warnings by baseball men not to underrate the wise, old Branch, we string along with the growing mob that sincerely believes Rickey is doomed to failure in Pittsburgh; that time will run out on him before he tastes the fruit of success he enjoyed so much in his younger days at St. Louis and Brooklyn.
'The Old Man has lost his touch,' was the succinct comment of a man who has been close to the baseball scene for as many years as Rickey.
'This Pirate thing is too much for him,' said another.
'He hasn't made one good move since he took over,' whiplashed a third. 'Show one good move he has made,' he challenged.
'I feel sorry for Rickey,' said a more charitable client. 'This club was hopeless when he took it over.'
'If it was hopeless, he helped make it that way,' countered a nearby listener.
And so it goes on. The gentle breeze of protest which greeted Rickey's faltering efforts in 1951 grew into a raging gale in 1952. It threatens to develop into a typhoon of all-sweeping proportions if some miracle doesn't happen this year.
It could very well sweep the  Rickey regime out of office even he has two more years to go on a five-year contract that calls for a handsome $100,000 per annum, plus $25,000 for his son, Branch, Jr., for each of the five seasons.
The mounting resentment over Rickey's failure to make good on his promises can't help but sizzle the ears of the embarrassed owners, millionaires John Galbreath, Tom Johnson and Bing Crosby.
How long they can continue to stand an insufferable situation is a matter of conjecture. My opinion is that this is a make or break year for Branch Rickey, with either he or the owners throwing in the towel and admitting defeat.
Before pardoning or indicting the man, let us see what Rickey has done since he took over the swivel chair in the plush office at Forbes Field.
He was brought to Pittsburgh in 1950 as a vice president and a general manager as a desperation measure by the owners, a silent admission that the previous four years of their guidance were a miserable mess, something they would like to forget.
Rickey was the Moses they turned to in their moment of darkness. He would lead them out of the wilderness. Rickey, given the bounce by his once-beloved Brooklyn Bums, was available. His good luck was still holding out for him. He bounced right into the lush Pittsburgh post. Men of three score and ten don't often find jobs paying a hundred G's. And the job seeking them to boot.
Naturally, Rickey was delighted to accept. He frowned upon the Pittsburgh situation as he first surveyed it, his bushy eyebrows forming quizzical chevrons. 'There's a lot of work to be done here,' was the first understatement he hurled at a corps of newsmen.
And Rickey has worked. I do not agree with anyone who charges that Rickey has laid down on the job. True, his many excursions into the after-dinner-speaking league have brought censure down on his shaggy pate, but the fact remains, there isn't a harder worker in the Pirate organization or probably any baseball organization.
At 71, he still puts in 14 to 16 hours a day traveling or working on Pirate problems. He can wear out men 30 years his junior who try to keep up with him. But all his work has yet to produce results.
Prior to Rickey's arrival on the scene, the gold-plated owners had tried to buy their way into the favor of Pittsburgh fans. They succeeded turnstile-wise but outside of one year, 1948, they could not brag about the kind of club they put on the field.
There was a Barnum touch to many of the moves McKinney, Galbreath, Johnson, Crosby, et al, made during the first four years. Roy Hamey, now with the New York Yankees, was the general manager for that period. McKinney was Frank McKinney, the Indianapolis banker and big-name politico. He was the president of the club until mid-1950 when a tiff with the other owners over a proposed change from Bill Meyer to Al Lopez as manager found McKinney departing the scene.
The four new owners had taken over in a blaze of publicity and glory at the end of the 1946 season. This marked the end of the highly successful Dreyfuss dynasty, then headed by the late Mrs. Dreyfuss and her son-in-law, Bill Benswanger.
Billy Herman was brought in as manager in a deal that should have warned Pittsburgh fans more bad ones were to come. Bob Elliott, a competent third sacker and an excellent hitter, was sent to the Boston Braves in exchange for Herman's services.
Had the new owners been smart, they could have obtained Herman for no more than the waiver price. Billy, a good one in his day, was on his last legs as a player. He was worth very little to the Pirates this way and because of his failure to last more than one year as a manager, the deal was a lopsided one in favor of Boston.
What a lot of people in Pittsburgh like to refer to as the Barnum era began with the signing of Hank Greenberg, whose salad days had withered in the American League after a long career.
It was a one-year shot designed to oil the rusty Forbes Field turnstiles. Big Hank was paid something like $110,000 in salary and stock in the ball club, but he was worth every penny. Announcement of his becoming a Pirate sent the season ticket sale to record heights.
A strip of ugly chicken wire was placed in left field and dubbed Greenberg Gardens. It housed the pitching bullpens and brought the fences in some thirty feet for Greenberg and a young Mr. Ralph Kiner, who was going into his second year as a home run slugger.
The Garden also paid off. Kiner racked up 51 homers and Greenberg 25 that year, but despite the long ball pyrotechnics the Pirates finished deadlocked for seventh and eighth with the Phils. This cost Herman his job as a manager.
From the start, Rickey played a hand in the Pirate deal. It was to him McKinney, Galbreath and Hamey went for help in the way of players. 'Why not?' answered the big 'humanitarian' from Brooklyn, who when it comes to making a deal will trade you a snowball any day for a Frigidaire.
He talked the Pirates into giving him Preacher Roe and Billy Cox for Dixie Walker, Vic Lombardi and Hal Gregg. Roe and Cox helped the Bums to two pennants and are still big men there, while Walker, Lombardi and Gregg have long departed the major league scene.
He also sold the Pirates an assorted lot what the more outspoken fans call 'garbage' in the way of big league material. In all, Rickey and Brooklyn took more than a million dollars from the Pirates in a succession of deals.
That is why, ironically, a large segment of Pittsburghers blames Rickey for most of the headaches he had to take over when he came here.
The one good year in six the new owners enjoyed came in 1948 when Billy Meyer, a highly successful minor league manager, was pried loose from the Yankee chain. He succeeded Herman and did a tremendous job of getting a lot of mileage out of some worn-out playing material.
Three aged Methuselahs of the mound- Rip Sewell, Fritz Ostermueller and Elmer Riddle- kept the club in the flag race until mid-September when it came apart at the seams and finished fourth. This was better than expected and Meyer was hailed as Manager of the Year.
Pittsburgh's cup of baseball joy wasn't to last. The million and a half customers who turned out set a new attendance record. The money was poured right back into the club. But 1949 was different. The club slumped to sixth place, then to eighth the following year.
With this came Rickey. He said he would feel his way around in the first season, build up in the second and by the third he would give Pittsburgh a team able to contend in the first division.
Luckily for him and the club, the Pirates defeated the Cubs in the final game of the 1951 season to gain seventh place, a one-notch improvement over the previous year.
The 'feeling around' stage over, Rickey went to work in earnest. He spent over $800,000 signing every worth-while young prospect recommended to him. Some 400 players, 90 per cent of them in their teens, became Pirate property.
'Out of quantity we get quality,' the Mahatma intoned. The plan worked for him in St. Louis and Brooklyn. Why not Pittsburgh?
Rickey faced 1952 with optimism not shared by others. These rookies will come through for him, by gosh, like the Pepper Martins, Dizzy Deans, Pete Reisers, Gil Hodges and others had done for him before.
The Old Man let his enthusiasm run away with him. His 'Rickey-dinks,' as the Pirates were laughingly referred to, and his 'Operation Peach Fuzz' proved utter failures. He insisted on using seven Class C and D rookies in the lineup at the same time with the result the club threw away one ball game after another.
The situation became so disgusting that the fans kept away from the parks in large numbers. The attendance dropped to $600,000, still a remarkable figure in view of the sandlot type of play.
The rookies were 'skeered' and the old-timers on the club like Kiner, Dickson, Pollet, Metkovich, McCullough and one or two others were secretly disgruntled, a few others openly so.
This apathetic congregation managed to win 42 games while losing 112, the worst blotch in the once proud Pirate history. How it managed to win 42 is a mystery that demands a recount.
Rickey was prodded for the first time by the Pittsburgh newspapers. The Mahatma answered by changing managers. The easy-going Meyer, who stood the brunt of the abuse Rickey and the others should have taken, was permitted to resign because of ill health. To no one's surprise, Fred Haney was brought in from Hollywood to inherit Bill's headaches.
The Pirates have only one way to go. They're bound to improve. How much, is what the fans would like to know. This promises to be a very interesting year for the Pirates."

-Al Abrams, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

DOG-GONE CONTRACT
"'Mr. Rickey is very clever about money,' said Ralph Kiner this spring. 'I remember one time Preacher Roe was holding out from the Dodgers when Rickey was there. After a couple of conferences, Rickey told Preach to stay home and think the offer over.
''And by the way,' Rickey told him, 'you can have my two hunting dogs if you want them.'
'So Preacher took the dogs out, and they were the finest hunting dogs he had ever seen. He got to thinking that Mr. Rickey was a pretty nice guy, and, well, maybe he should sign after all. So he signed the contract and sent it back.
'And you know the day Preach put that contract in the mail, those dogs took out across the field and he hasn't seen'em since!'"

-Emmett Watson in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

NOT A GEM RICKEY
"Branch Rickey, the Pirates general manager, has a cagey reputation as a trader. But usually in dealing off a star at the age of 31, he picks up opposite talent that is young and hungry. Some of the players Rickey got this time are neither young nor hungry."

-Pat Harmon in the Cincinnati Post (Baseball Digest, August 1953)

RICKEY CAUGHT ON THIS ONE
"Branch Rickey doesn't claim to be right all the time. Last winter he insisted the strongest feature of the Pirates was catching. Even this spring he enthused, 'We have catching good enough for the World Series.' So Ed FitzGerald was peddled to Washington and Joe Gariagola was traded to the Cubs."

-Les Biederman in the Pittsburgh Press (Baseball Digest, August 1953)

NOW THAT RICKEY OWNS STOCK-
Did 'His Money' Influence Kiner Deal?
"Perhaps a lot of questions were answered recently when the Post-Gazette found out that General Manager Branch Rickey now owns stock in the Pittsburgh Pirates (between 5 and 10 per cent purchased about a year ago).
This could be the main reason why Rickey is trading off his highly paid stars, whenever the opportunity arises, and is worried so greatly about the money in the treasury.
His Ralph Kiner deal- being criticized boisterously in Pittsburgh- roughly lopped $122,000 off the Pirate payroll. Along with Kiner's $75,000 salary, the Chicago Cubs accepted responsibility of paying George Metkovich on his $14,000 contract; Howie Pollet is signed for $18,000 and Joe Garagiola for about $15,000.
The Bucs have made no secret in the past year that the exchequer is causing them big headaches. It even has been rumored around the league that the name of the ball club is no longer acceptable to float a loan. Only the signatures of Co-owners Tom Johnson and John Galbreath will bring the Pirates a bank loan, if necessary.
It has been estimated that the Kiner deal, which shifted five Cubs to Pittsburgh, added about $38,000 in salaries.
So, with a little mathematics, Rickey added $183,500 to the treasury. Since he received 100 G's in cash from the Cubs, and the difference in the players' salaries amounts to $83,000, Rickey helped things pretty well financially.
Rickey has slacked off noticeably in the past year or 18 months in signing bonus players. Whether it has anything to do with his now owning stock is open for argument.
But the Mahatama is known for not appreciating high priced ball players on his club.
During the first two years of Rickey's regime in Pittsburgh he let the dough flow as easily as you could turn on a water faucet.
He went through better than a half-million dollars during his first summer in Pittsburgh, giving out bonuses to young players.
The only youngsters who showed anything worthwhile were Dick Groat, the shortstop from Swissvale, Pa., and Jimmy Waugh, the pitcher from Lancaster, Ohio.
Both reportedly received about $25,000 to sign with the Pirates.
There were many others and, although the draft stepped in to hinder their advancement, none showed enough ability, to sideline observers, to justify any large bonuses.
A prominent example has been Dick Hall, the Swarthmore College athlete. Hall nicked the Bucs for $30,000. In two seasons they haven't been able to find a place where this six-foot-six giant can play. Even his minor league tenure has been very disappointing.
Hall's kind of money isn't being spent at Forbes Field any more. And the fact that the Mahatma now owns stock in the Pirates could very well be an enlightening reason."

-Jack Hernon, condensed from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Baseball Digest, August 1953)

Branch Rickey, anent the 1953 home run barrage: "It isn't the rabbit in the ball, but the quail in the pitchers that's responsible."

-Baseball Digest, October 1953

1953 Yankee of the Past: Jacob Ruppert

OCEANS OF "LOVE"
"The late Col. Jake Ruppert is the subject anecdotes. A recent one making the rounds is centered on baseball's battle with the Federal League. Harry Sinclair, one of the federal millionaires, thought he should have a one-third interest in the Yankees (owned by Ruppert and Tillinghast Huston) after the outlaw circuit had folded. He outlined his ideas to Ruppert who thoughtfully asked: 'Do you know where the Atlantic Ocean is?' Sinclair said he surely did. 'Well, then go jump in it,' answered Ruppert."

-Baseball Digest, September 1953

1953 Yankee of the Past: Red Ruffing

"Cleveland scout  Charley Ruffing revealed the other day why the Indians were pushovers while Charley was with the Yankees. 'I stooped over to pick up some dirt while batting one day and as I started to straighten up I turned my head a little and there I was looking right at catcher Frankie Pytlak's signs. After that, of course, all our hitters needed plenty of dirt on their hands. We picked off nearly every pitch and the Cleveland pitchers went crazy. They blamed Art Fletcher and Earle Combs, the coaches."

-Ken Smith in the New York Mirror (Baseball Digest, March 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Lefty Gomez

COACH WITH A CURVE
"It was a dining car discussion en route north from St. Petersburg the other spring. Joining in the chatter were Lefty Gomez, one-time great New York Yankee hurler, and his alter ego of those days, Johnny  Murphy, now head of the Boston Red Sox farm system.
'Remember one day,' said Murphy, addressing Gomez, 'I relieved Red Ruffing and got Greenberg out on five fast balls, each one against his fists. He finally popped up.
'The next day I relieved you,'- again indicating Gomez- 'Greenberg was the batter. Coming in from the bullpen Joe DiMaggio called me. 'You got him out on fast stuff yesterday,' Joe said. 'He'll be looking for it today. Better curve him.'
'So after I warmed up the first pitch was a curve ball. Hank hit it upstairs. When we finally got the side out, Joe sat down beside me on the bench and said, 'I guess I'd better stick to center fielding and let you do the pitching.' '
'From the way Greenberg hit me, it would have been better to let Joe do the pitching and me play the outfield,' cracked Gomez.
The train rounded a sharp curve.
Beers, glasses, chairs and talkers careened to one side.
'What a curve!' said Gomez. 'If I had one like that, I'd make a comeback.'"

-Frank Yuetter in the Philadelphia Bulletin (Baseball Digest, January 1953)

SHINE BOY BOOTS ONE
"During the baseball meetings at Phoenix, Lefty Gomez was perched on a shoe-shine chair, with a young man working away on one foot and talking baseball.
'I don't like them Yankees,' he was saying. 'I wish somethin' would happen to those guys. Cry-babies, too, and ...'
The shoe was suddenly jerked from under his hands and he found Lefty standing beside him. 'I used to pitch for the Yankees and I liked them,' cracked Gomez. 'I still like'em. A great team and a great organization. Here ... ' and he handed the guy a quarter and walked off ... one shoe shined, the other not."

-Baseball Digest, February 1953

THE ONE TIME GOMEZ WAS SILENT
"'Know something?' offered Lefty Gomez. 'If I was in charge of the development of a young first baseman who was awkward around that bag, I'd make him take dancing. It's just the thing to develop the footwork that you need for that position. But I'm not always free with advice. There's a kid out West that some big league club signed, a pitcher.
'His high school coach asked me to give him some pointers on motion, delivery, etc. I asked what the kid signed for and the coach said $40,000. I said holy mackerel, $40,000 and he needs to learn about delivery? Suppose I teach him something and he hurts his arm. No, sir, let the outfit that paid $40,000 have somebody teach him. Not me.'"

-Halsey Hall in the Minneapolis Tribune (Baseball Digest, April 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Tony Lazzeri

VIAL JOKE
"Babe Ruth used to wash his eyes with a special lotion before every game. Tony Lazzeri was a daily spectator at the process and openly ridiculed the Baltimore Orphan's precaution.
'Why don't you throw the stuff away, you big ape?' finally jeered Poosh 'Em Up one day. 'It doesn't do any more good than dousing your eyes with so much water. Here, give me the bottle and I'll show you.'
Before the astonished Babe could stop him Tony snatched the vial from his hands, tilted back his head and drank the entire contents. Ruth started screaming for the club doctor.
'Tony's poisoned himself!' he shouted. 'Do something, somebody. He's going to die!'
But the artful Lazzeri didn't fall, writhing, to the dressing room floor. He had substituted water for the eyewash and the laugh was on the Babe."

-Harold C. Burr in the Brooklyn Eagle (Baseball Digest, April 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Joe DiMaggio

"Joe DiMaggio's tete-a-tetes with Marilyn Monroe prove he's still got a great batting eye- he doesn't miss many curves."

-Earl Wilson in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, January 1953)

"Every winter it is the custom of the publicity department of the Yankees to send out questionnaires to the players. They are asked to answer a number of queries, one of which is, 'Who is your baseball model, and which player do you admire the most?'
Over the past five years 90 per cent of the answers to this question have been Joe DiMaggio.
Joe's teammates stressed his grace, his pride, his power, his speed. They emphasized his aggressiveness, his high quality as a team player, his effortlessness, superlative skill.
As a judge of a fly ball, Guiseppe, in his heyday, was in a class by himself. I will never forget that catch he made years ago, to the chagrin of Hank Greenberg. It happened in the Stadium. Hank, with the Tigers, aimed for the center field bleachers, into which no one has yet been able to drive a baseball. The drive barely fell short, and became involved with the center field flagpole. DiMaggio 'had it all the way,' in the argot of the diamond, and made one of the most amazing catches it has been my good fortune to see.
During the 1934 season, Joe went through a particularly wearing Sunday double-header in San Francisco. He felt like going home and into bed. But there was a family dinner at a sister's home, and Joe just had to be there.
The fatigued outfielder got into a jitney bus at the Seals Stadium, and soon found himself sitting in a very cramped position in an overcrowded vehicle. When Joe reached his destination, he stepped to the curb on a leg which had become numb. The leg buckled under him, the knee was injured, and Outfielder Joe DiMaggio found himself a casualty.
The major league fraternity showed reduced interest in Joe. The word got around that his knee injury was chronic. With no decent offers for him, DiMaggio found himself detoured from his major league objective. Back he went into Coast League competition in 1935.
Joe played in 172 games that year, hit .398. The late Bill Essick and Joe Devine had developed a fresh interest in Guiseppe. They were working for Edward G. Barrow, general manager of the Yankees, and told him that they believed that DiMaggio's knee was responding to treatment. Barrow obtained permission from Owner Charley Graham of San Francisco to submit that knee to examination by a Los Angeles specialist.
'That leg should not hamper Joe's career,' Essick and Devine were told.
Barrow drove a hard bargain with Graham. He obtained DiMaggio for $25,000 in cash, and five players. One of these, Dr. Edward Farrell, now a flourishing dentist in New Jersey, refused to go the Seals, and retired from baseball. Barrow had to shell out another five grand to make up for Farrell.
No sooner had the Yankees closed the deal for Joe than they were besieged with offers for him from other major league clubs. I was with Barrow in the Yankee offices one afternoon when the late Eddie Collins, of the Red Sox, called Cousin Ed over the telephone and tried to land Joe for $55,000. 'Make that $155,000 and you still get nowhere,' Barrow told Eddie.
Had the Red Sox obtained Joe DiMaggio, with Ted Williams to follow, the pennant situation in the American League certainly would have been changed. As it was, the coming of Guiseppe to the Stadium enabled the New York club and Joe McCarthy to set an American League record, and match John J. McGraw's record with the 1921-24 Giants, by winning four consecutive pennants. Marse Joe bettered Mac's showing by hanging a world championship onto each of those four league titles."

-Dan Daniel, New York World-Telegram and Sun (Baseball's Greatest Lineup, Baseball Digest, February 1953)

"Hollywood wags report Joe DiMaggio purchased Marilyn Monroe a 'baseball gown.' It shows a lot of curves, has a diamond back and a grandstand view in front!"

-Irv Kupcinet in the Chicago Times (Baseball Digest, May 1953)

DISENCHANTMENT
"Junior Standish, a Latin Quarter beauty, was dated by Joe DiMaggio while he was out of the lineup because of a batting slump and an injured heel. The next day DiMaggio went back into the lineup and got two hits. All ball players are superstitious, and to him Miss Standish and hits became cause and effect. He continued to date her, and continued to hit. Her place in his affection became secure- for two weeks, while his batting spree continued. Then, one day, Joe went hitless. The first gossip-columnist to make a deadline reported, without fear of contradiction, that 'Junior Standish and Joe DiMaggio have split.'"

-Leonard Lyons in the New York Post (Baseball Digest, October 1953)

1953 Yankee of the Past: Babe Ruth

"I never knew a great man- and Babe Ruth was truly great- who was more completely himself every minute he lived. My years in the pressbox and Ruth's on the field ran concurrently. More than that, he was an intimate friend. It is a cherished delight to remember that more than once I helped him break training, a minor contribution to be sure. My old friend never needed much help when the circumstances were inviting.
There are two nights with the Babe I remember particularly.
The first was in October, 1928. The Yankees have just beaten the St. Louis Cardinals four straight. Ruth has been the standout with a record .625 batting average and three home runs in the wrap-up game. We are aboard the Yankee special headed back east. Ruth is stripped to the waist, wearing only his pajama pants. Hours later he and Waite Hoyt and Bob Meusel are to lead through the train a roistering party, which is to leave everybody with torn ties and shirts. At the moment he is sitting in his drawing room, which is stacked high with bottled beer, and on the card table is an immense mound of the great man's favorite snack food: spiced barbecued ribs. Boisterous good fellowship reigns as the train roars through the night.
Along about 1 A.M. there is a stop in Mattoon, Ill., where a railroading process of some nature takes place. Even at this hour there is a crowd at the station, hundreds it seems, and you note with surprise two women with sleeping babes in arms. The crowd sets up a cry: 'We want Ruth! We want Ruth!'
Presently the Babe, his torso still bare, a bottle of beer in one hand, a messy hunk of the vile ribs in the other, appears on the platform of the car. At the sight of the great man there is awed silence. By this time the Babe has been around long enough to have developed a loose social sense. This is a situation which clearly calls for acknowledgment and proper appreciation. Wiping his lips with his forearm he commands:
'Three cheers for the Yankees!'
There is a pause after the response. Then with the acquired faculty he had for doing the right thing he sensed that these people must be Cardinal fans by geographical propinquity.
'Three cheers for the Cardinals!'
But before the willing and eager audience could organize a cheer Ruth lifted a restraining paw.
'Aw, to hell with' em. They quit.'
I cherish my memory of the incident as an illustration of the man's studied kindness on the one hand and his raw integrity on the other. It would be decent to cheer them but really they had no cheer coming. You and I more likely would have been disposed to play it straight. The Babe simply didn't know how.
The other night I have in mind was October, 1934. The locale is again St. Louis. The Detroit Tigers are one up on the Cardinals in the Series and the scene is shifting back to Briggs Stadium for the final two games. The Babe is experting for the Hearst newspapers. I am accompanying him from the ball park to the station with a stopover for refilling at one of the Babe's favorite pubs. It is still some minutes before departure time and as we walk down the platform the Babe says: 'Let's go up front and look at the engine.'
It is indeed a monster and the Babe consumes its massive lines with the wonder of a small boy. The engineer looks down from the upper structure of his cab and by way of making conversation asks:
'How many home runs you gonna hit for the Yankees next year, Babe?'
'Nuts with the Yankees,' the Babe barks. 'I'm through with them cheapskates.'
To my knowledge this was the first disclosure Ruth had made that he was ending his long association with the Yankees. Up to that time there had been no outside inkling he was not returning to the Stadium. Only Jake Ruppert and Ed Barrow, and very probably Ruth's wife, knew the breaking point had been reached. It was typical of the Babe that the first outsider to know would be an anonymous engineer he had never seen before in his life.

The Babe had begun to fade badly. That season his hitting dipped under .300, he got but 22 home runs and played in only 125 games. The handwriting was on the wall, in large, clear, portentous strokes. He was just about through. What next? Managing, of course. The reward of every great ball player. It had come to Cobb, to Speaker, Hornsby, Sisler, Johnson, Mathewson. 'Why not me?' Ruth must have asked himself. 'After all, they said I built Yankee Stadium.'
It was the result of what had been an unsatisfactory showdown with Ruppert that the Babe was telling the unknown engineer in the St. Louis yards that night. Ruth had virtually demanded that Ruppert make a choice between him and Joe McCarthy. It wasn't Ruth's way to approach a delicate problem with finesse or diplomacy.
Patience is all Ruth needed to get the manager's post. Ruppert was dubious of the Babe's ability to handle men, but he recognized Ruth was entitled by performance and precedent to the opportunity. Ruppert suggested a fair compromise. Manage the farm club in Newark for one year. To the Babe this was an affront. There would be no minors for him in any capacity. The Yankees under McCarthy had finished second in 1933 and 1934 and were destined to finish second again in 1935. Ruppert was insistent on winners and the situation was such that if Ruth had gone to Newark or even deferred the showdown he almost surely would have been made manager of the Yankees in 1936.
For a while, Ruth was puzzled, hurt and embittered that not only the Yankees but no other major club would make room for him as a manager, and a great many fans shared these emotions, I'm sure. On the surface it was extremely difficult to understand. I used to get letters from my mystified readers asking if there was a conspiracy against him. There wasn't, of course.
Ruth wasn't fashioned to be a manager. A manager must preach and practice restraints, impose law and order, make hard, tough decisions and maintain a certain aloofness from the players. The Babe was incapable of doing any of these things. It would have been unnatural and that was not the Babe's way. I never joined a campaign to make Ruth a manager of any club. I was too sure the results would have been unhappy. And in his later years, when he had become more understanding, I think he agreed, though he never admitted as much in my presence. I must believe, however, that one of the best breaks my old friend ever got was that he was never made manager of a big league ball club.

The Babe brought such a gay spirit to his work and performed his heroics with such seeming ease and was so seldom in the middle of what the boys call rhubarbs that there was a tendency to ignore his great competitive ardor. But even if he didn't wear it on his sleeve he had it to a very marked degree. So often it has been observed that the Babe never failed to rise to the occasion. What could that have been but a fierce burning urge to win and excel? Give him a high audience, the spotlight and a dramatic situation and he was sure to take over the center stage.

I'm always astonished whenever I come across people who do not remember or who have never heard of Ruth as a pitcher. As a boy the Babe was one of those oddities- a left-handed catcher- but it was as a pitcher that he came into professional baseball. And don't let anybody tell you he wasn't good. He was more than good. He was great. And if he had remained as a pitcher he might well have established himself as the greatest left-hander anybody ever saw. He was fast, had a corking curve, excellent control, remarkable poise.
Ruth's over-all pitching record was 94 won and 46 lost for .671 with an earned run average of 2.28. And keep in mind he had not reached his peak when Barrow made him over into an outfielder for keeps in 1919. At that time he was only 24. When you consider that he lasted 16 more years there is no telling how far he would have gone as a pitcher, how many dazzling exploits he might have achieved. Ruth was always proud of his pitching. Sitting with friends in his New York apartment in a den filled with mementos of his career, trophies, pictures, cartoons and such, he'd give you a pitch-by-pitch detail of what he called his greatest thrill.
Detroit was playing the Red Sox. Detroit was the heaviest hitting team in baseball. 'It's the last of the ninth and we got 'em beat 1-0 in their own park, and nobody's coming up but Veach, Cobb and Crawford. That's all. Just Veach, Cobb and Crawford. Three tough cookies. And we got only a one-run lead. Well, what does the old Jedge do (a name of vague origin he used for himself) but get'em out in order. Not only that, I strike 'em out. And on ten pitched balls. Do you hear me? Ten pitched balls. And some of these jerks say I was just a thrower. Hell, I was a great pitcher.' And that he was. One of his more resplendent pitching records is still in the book; that of pitching 29 consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play. Ruth liked to remember that one, too, and you could be sure that before the night was over he'd remind you whose record he'd beat. 'Christy Mathewson's. No thrower's going around beating Matty's records, I'm telling you.'"

-Baseball's Greatest Lineup by Joe Williams, New York World-Telegram and Sun (Baseball Digest, February 1953)

QUOTING RUTH: "I NEVER SHOULD HAVE POINTED!"
"'Don't let anyone ever tell you Babe Ruth didn't point where he was going to hit that homer in Chicago (1932 World Series),' admonishes Cy Perkins, the Phillies coach who was the Babe's roommate at the time. 'He pointed twice. Once before the first pitch and the second time right before the third pitch.
'You know about the argument. The Babe was never one to ride the other clubs. He didn't do that, but he did kid the Cubs about cutting Mark Koenig (their shortstop who hadn't been with Chicago the entire season) for only half a share instead of a full one. The Cubs got on the Babe and in this game, he was really hot.
'They were still giving him the business when he went up to the plate. That's when he pointed to center field. He fouled off the first pitch. The second was a ball. Then the Babe pointed again and on the third pitch- wham!- that was it.
'In the room that night, the Babe told me what a sucker he was to point. It sure put him on the spot.
''Look how many ways they could have got me out,' he said. 'I'd have given $10,000 not to have done it.'"

-Ed Pollack in the Philadelphia Bulletin (Baseball Digest, April 1953)

THE BABE'S FIRST CALLED HOMER
"To anyone even faintly familiar with the amazing feats of Babe Ruth, the most magnetic and dramatic ball player of all time, his home run off Charlie Root in the 1932 World Series stands out as one of his most famous. The Cubs were really on Babe in that Series. The bench jockeys were using both foul and fair means to get his goat. To silence them, Ruth pointed dramatically toward the center field bleachers, which many observers interpreted as meaning he was indicating he would hit the next pitch up there for a home run. He did!
The Babe's success in apparently calling his shot naturally has become a legend. The fact remains, however, that 11 years prior to the 1932 World Series- in 1921- I saw the original of that unbelievable trick, performed in much more dramatic circumstances- and it was dismissed casually by most sports writers with a brief line that 'the Babe hit one into the center field bleachers at the Polo Grounds, the first time it had ever been done.'
The details leading up to this home run by the Babe were exciting, memorable and tragic. On Aug. 16, 1920, the Cleveland Indians invaded the Polo Grounds with a team heading for the pennant. The Yankees, only a half-game behind, were fighting hard to overtake them. Carl Mays was on the mound for the Yankees. Ray Chapman, a fine shortstop and hitter, was at bat for the Indians.
Mays wound up and delivered the ball. There was a resounding crack and the ball bounced out over the pitcher's head toward second base. Chapman, hit on the head, slowly crumpled to the ground, unconscious. I was sitting on the bench then and the first thought that came to me was to take a glass of water out to him. But Chapman never had a chance to drink it. Without regaining consciousness, he died that night.
A great deal of controversy developed. Was the pitch an accident or was Mays trying to dust off Chapman? Fiery Ty Cobb, though he was playing with Detroit at Boston that day, claimed Mays deliberately tried to bean Chapman. The Yankees and particularly Babe Ruth jumped to Mays' defense. A bitter feud developed between Cobb and Ruth.
The feud carried over until the following season. In June the Tigers invaded the Polo Grounds. In the course of one of the games (June 13), Cobb went tearing in for a Texas Leaguer that fell just out of his reach. He was near second base. Ruth was stepping into the batter's box. Cobb yelled some vilification at the Babe. Infuriated, Ruth yelled out, 'You dirty so-and-so, get back to the outfield.' And dramatically pointing his finger to a spot in the far away center field bleachers, blasphemed, 'I am going to hit the --- ---- ball up there.' He did."

-Alfred Kunitz [former Yankee batboy] (Baseball Digest, August 1953)