Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 54

#4- The Babe and the Roaring Twenties

 

Like when just in the nick of time E.T. soared, elevating

our hearts and dreams with him, a hero arrived. Actually he had

to have had a clairvoyant power, as he was already there waiting

for the opportunity; only one raised in an orphanage might fully

understand.

Responding in defiance against being subjected to

Prohibition, enacted in 1920, the US went on a drinking splurge

which dwarfed the minor dalliance the authorities were seeking

to abolish. The official version was a sham with eighteen

different interpretations; bringing people like Al Capone to

power and popularity. “So let’s ignore all the crap and have a

big party,” they said. “The money spigots have been opened if

you know where to go.”

So too, in baseball, fans were ready for a bash never

previously seen. And it was ushered in by one man and one man

alone; Babe Ruth. Ruth had been a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox

since 1914; and quite the left handed pitcher he was. Through

1919 he had compiled an 89-46 won-loss record with an ERA of

2.19. During this period he led the league in a few seasonal

categories and established a still standing World Series record

for consecutive scoreless innings pitched. Continuation of this

performance ensured Hall of Fame credentials as a moundsman, but

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 55

what was becoming apparent was that he was out and out

revolutionary with a stick.

The corporate induced ticky-ticky, “let’s not risk a

mistake,” nickel and diming, pre-info overload mindset made a

few tepid excursions into the unfamiliar waters of change. The

initially promising results of that “boldness” resulted in a

logical short term decision of “Sell.” What do they know? It has

been effectively argued by conspiracy theorists that the Boston

Red Sox only exist as a farm team to serve the New York Yankees.

By way of background it should be noted that in 1918 some

bright person in the Red Sox organization noticed that the boy

could not only pitch, but that he could hit a bit. Babe was put

in the lineup for 2/3 of the games and responded with 11 home

runs. He followed that in 1919 by setting the all-time record of

29 in his 130 games. Despite some good seasons the Boston Red

Sox were basically broke and sold off their best players. Babe

went to the rival New York Yankees and they boldly ended his

pitching career and made him a full time right fielder. The Babe

more than returned the favor by hitting 54 home runs in 1920,

which almost doubled the previous record; his own. He followed

that with 59 in 1921, and no one ever again had any questions

about the success of the “experiment.” In fact the “Black Sox”

were quickly relegated to the status of an overly long story

with no current significance. Nobody in Chicago hit many home

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 56

runs anyway. Sure, Joe Jackson’s and Eddie Ciccote’s wallets and

long term recognitions deserved more than to be cut down in

their slightly passed primes. They never got to play out the

inevitable, common decline. Time would show that their notoriety

got them more fame than most of those inducted into the hall of

Fame could attain and Shoeless’ bat; “Black Betsey” would one

day sell for more than the canvas of a nineteenth century

European impressionist. Shoeshine boys were leading their future

IT brothers to the bank with millions. All in all, despite the

few perfected, head-office, hand wringing acts which no one was

paying to see, nobody was worried anymore.

Certainly not the fans. They were loaded. Loaded with the

revolutionary blasts of this young man from Baltimore as well as

the nourishment taken from their silver flasks. Then there were

those “flappers” with their untied flapping boots. ........ But

back to baseball, by the end of the decade the fans had

increased their attendance by 50%. Buffs in the other league

cities attended the games when New York’s Babe was in town more

than they did any other time. The Twenties were roaring and,

Ruth was more than just baseball’s greatest player. He had

become baseball itself. Any worry over repercussions from the

1919 Black Sox scandal was forgotten in the greatness of this

one charismatic and extremely skilled man.

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 57

“The Bambino” never showed a concern for consistency. He

struck out more times than he homered. He led the league in

dingers an unprecedented twelve times, but also led it in whiffs

five. Whatever his momentary predilections it was news. As Ruth

went, so went the Yankees, even though the team seemed more than

adequately skilled to win the pennant without him. Murderers’

Row’ was the nickname given to the New York Yankee baseball

teams of the late 1920s, often considered the best in the

history of the game. The 1927 version which many consider the

pinnacle best had a lineup of Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe

Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri. Koenig and

Meusel are the non-Hall of Famers in the group though Meusel’s

stats are a bit better than Lazzeri’s. His nonchalant laconic

attitude may not have endeared him to the sportswriters, but

they were an asset at the plate. Once when asked about some

particularly hard throwing pitcher he was soon to face, he said;

“I don’t care if he shoots it out of a cannon. The only question

is how fast I have to start my bat.” Had we not been graced with

Ruthian wallops some of us might be speaking of Meuselian

nonchalant whacks.

The 1927 season was virtually un-paralleled for the

Yankees; or anyone else for that matter. The prior year they

lost the World Series in seven games to a rather lackluster St.

Louis Cardinal team headed by hated player-manager Rogers

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 58

Hornsby, which won the pennant at 89-65, two games ahead of the

Reds. The offense was led by a sub-par Hornsby campaign, Jim

Bottomley and otherwise not-much-noticed, 1926 league MVP Bob

O’Farrell, who batted .293, with 7 home runs and 68 RBIs. Led by

RBI champion Jim Bottomley, the offense scored the most runs in

the NL, aided by career seasons from a few people not deemed

memorable. The pitching staff boasted 39 year old Grover

Cleveland Alexander, who was playing on his third team of the

year, going 9-7, with a 2.93 ERA for the Cards. To make things

more ironic the deciding 3-2 game seven ended in the ninth

inning when Babe Ruth was thrown out trying to steal second

base. The 1926 championship Cards had to have been a true “team

effort” spiced with a bit of good fortune.

After having been embarrassed in the 1926 World Series, the

Yankees went on a tear in 1927, going 110-44 during the regular

season, winning the AL pennant by 19 games, and sweeping

the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1927 World Series. Their regular

season team batting average was .307. They slugged .489, scored

975 runs, and outscored their opponents by 376 runs; all records

at the time and still high on the all-time list; the most

significant “runs scored” category having the 1931 Ruth-Gehrig

Yankees on top at 1,067. Center fielder Earle Combs had a career

best year, batting .356 with 231 hits; left fielder Bob Meusel

batted .337 with 103 RBIs; and second baseman Tony Lazzeri drove

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 59

in 102 runs. Lou Gehrig batted .373, with 218 hits, 52 doubles,

18 triples, 47 home runs, a then record 175 RBIs, slugged at

.765, and was voted American League MVP. Ruth amassed a .356

batting average, 164 RBIs, 158 runs scored, walked 137 times,

and slugged .772. Perhaps, most notably, Ruth’s 60 home runs

that year broke his own record and remained the Major League

mark for 34 years. Oddly, after the initial cheers, little note

was made of it at the time. Presumably people just assumed that

the Babe would just break it again in another MVP year.

If the run producing machine didn’t make things tough

enough for opponents, the pitching staff added insult to injury

by giving up the fewest runs. The hillers led the league in team

ERA at 3.20; and included Waite Hoyt who went 22–7; Herb Pennock

who went 19–8; and rookie Wilcy Moore, in his best season at 19-

7, and a league leading ERA of 2.28. The 1927 Yankees would

eventually send six players along with manager Miller Huggins and

President Ed Barrow to the Hall of Fame. Only the 1928 Yankees had

more with 9. Three other Yankee pitchers had an ERA under 3.00

that season. After sweeping the Pirates in the Series, the

Yankees again made things look easy by wiping out the Cardinals

in the 1928 World Series. The 1927-28 Yankees were the first

team to ever sweep the World Series in consecutive years; to be

later duplicated by the DiMaggio Yankee teams of 1938-39 and the

Jeter-Rivera versions of 1998-99.

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 60

When Ruth was having a Ruthian year, the Yankees were at

the top of the heap, winning six pennants and three World Series

in the twenties. When he gave indications of being mortal, the

whole team faltered. It was as if none of the other stars would

dare to step up and carry the team, though their numbers

strongly suggest that a few of them had the ability. But, maybe

they were the ones who knew him best and couldn’t get over their

awe.

Ruth could not have timed his emergence to immortality any

better. Some might say that he knew precisely when to quit

pitching. The Twenties were roaring and the game’s offense was

helped by an accelerated refresh rate of virgin white baseballs.

Some mention the outlawing of the spitball as a factor. While

this no doubt was of long term significance, its immediate

effect seems doubtful as the new law was like all law, subject

to “grandfathering” considerations. Pitchers who had previously

spit on the ball were allowed to keep doing so. It was just no

longer an option for newcomers.

Taking Ruth as a model more sluggers stepped to the plate.

Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gehrig, George Sisler, Paul Waner, Henry

Heilmann, Al Simmons, and Hack Wilson showed flashes of

brilliance which might have been better remembered if the Babe

was not there. But there he was ahead of them making use of a

baseball that was as clean in the ninth as it was in the first.

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 61

The hitters’ gain was of course the pitchers’ loss. Before

1920 an ERA of 4.00 would have had a pitcher worrying about his

job. While that same number was nothing to brag about after

1920, it was no indication of an unwanted trip to Podunk.

Ducking became an art form. In the power insatiable stands, the

pitchers found few friends.

In an attempt to put the chronology of relatively low home

run matters in some perspective for a modern fan, what follows

is the evolution of single season leaders:

1) In 1876 George Hall of the Athletics hit 5.

2) In 1879 Charley Jones of the Red Caps hit 9.

3) In 1883 Harry Stovey of the Athletics hit 14.

4) In 1884 Ned Williamson of the White Stockings hit 27. This

merits the first asterisk. Ned’s home field that year had fences

of 186 feet in left field, 300 feet in center and 190 feet in

right. 25 of his 27 were hit there. It is not known if the

design of this field was an experiment to determine the effects

of greater offense. However, it was abandoned the following

year. This is meant as no disparagement of Ned, as he was one

hell of a ballplayer, no matter where the fences were located.

5) In 1919 Babe Ruth of the Red Sox hit 29.

6) In 1920 Babe Ruth of the Yankees hit 54.

7) In 1921 Babe Ruth of the Yankees hit 59. Many consider this

the best single season anyone ever had. Babe led the league in

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 62

runs scored with 177, runs batted in with 168, as well as five

other categories. His .378 batting average was second to Rogers

Hornsby’s .397.

8) In 1927 Babe Ruth of the Yankees hit 60.

9) In 1961 Roger Maris of the Yankees hit 61.

10) In 1998 Mark McGwire of the Cardinals hit 70.

11) In 2001 Barry Bonds of the Giants hit 73.

 

In an attempt to again give a more accurate feel of the

time here are some quotes from people who were there.

 

“Who is this ‘Baby Ruth?’ And what does she do?”

George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, critic and polemicist, which

basically means one who likes to argue and proceeds to make

little sense.

 

On Babe Ruth: “He was a parade all by himself; a burst of dazzle

and jingle; Santa Claus drinking his whiskey straight and

groaning with a bellyache. Babe Ruth made the music that his

joyous years danced to in a continuous party. What Babe Ruth is

comes down one generation, handing it to the next, as a national

heirloom.”

Jimmy Cannon, sports journalist

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 63

“It is impossible to watch him at bat without experiencing an

emotion. I've seen hundreds of ballplayers at the plate, and

none of them managed to convey the message of impending doom to

the pitching that Babe Ruth did with the cock of his head, the

position of his legs, and the little gentle waving of the bat

feathered in his two big paws.”

New York Daily News, newspaper

 

“I saw it all happen, from beginning to end. But sometimes I

still can't believe what I saw. This nineteen-year-old kid,

crude, poorly educated, only slightly brushed by the social

veneer we call civilization, gradually transformed into the idol

of American youth and the symbol of baseball the world over; a

man loved by more people and with an intensity of feeling that

perhaps has never been equaled before or since. I saw a man

transform from a human being into something pretty close to a

god. If somebody had predicted that back on the Boston Red Sox

in 1914, he woulda been thrown into a lunatic asylum.”

Harry Hooper, right fielder for Red and White Sox

 

“Babe Ruth joined us in the middle of 1914, a nineteen-year-old

kid. He was a left-handed pitcher and a good one. He had never

been anywhere, didn't know anything about manners or how to

behave among people. Just a big, overgrown green pea. [...]

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 64

Lord, he ate too much. He'd stop along the road when we were

traveling and order half a dozen hot dogs and as many bottles of

soda pop, stuff them in one after another, give a few belches

and then roar, ‘Okay, boys, let's go!’”

Harry Hooper, right fielder for Red and White Sox

 

"Off the field he was bigger, louder, more excitable than his

teammates. He used other people's toothbrushes, ran the elevator

up and down, and got married to Helen Woodford, a sixteen-year-

old coffee shop waitress he met on his very first day in Boston.

Everybody called him Baby, then just the Babe."

Rogers Hornsby, second baseman

 

“Somebody asked me if my club was for sale. What a ridiculous

question! Of course it is for sale! So is my hat and my overcoat

and my watch. Anyone who wants them can have them, at a price. I

will dispose of my holdings in the Red Sox at any time, for my

price.”

H. Harrison Frazee, Red Sox owner

 

“Harry Frazee became the owner of the Red Sox and then before

long he sold off all our best players and ruined the team. Sold

them all to the Yankees. Ernie Shore, Duffy Lewis, Dutch

Leonard, Carl Mays, Babe Ruth. I was disgusted. The Yankee

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 65

dynasty of the Twenties was three-quarters the Red Sox of a few

years before. Frazee was short of cash and he sold the whole

team down the river to keep his dirty nose above the water. What

a way to end a wonderful ball club.”

Harry Hooper, right fielder for Red and White Sox

 

“It matters not what branch of mankind the player sprang from

with the fan, if he can deliver the goods. The Mick, the

Sheeney, the Wop, the Dutch and the Chink, the Cuban, the

Indian, the Jap or the so-called Anglo-Saxon — his "nationality"

is never a matter of moment if he can pitch or hit or field. In

organized baseball there has been no distinction raised except

tacit understanding that a player of Ethiopian descent is

ineligible, the wisdom of which we will not discuss except to

say that by such a rule some of the greatest players the game

has ever known have been denied their opportunity.”

The Sporting News, magazine, 1923

 

“It is my object to provide the North's growing black population

with professional baseball of their own, to do something

concrete for the loyalty of the race, and to eventually

challenge the major leagues.”

Rube Foster, owner-manager, Negro National League, 1920

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 66

"...a very successful operation, actually. Probably the third

biggest black business in the world."

Buck O'Neil, first baseman

 

“When the big games shall have become history there will stalk

across the pages of the record a massive figure, and its name

will be Andrew Foster. The master of the show, who moves the

figures on his checkerboard at will. The smooth-toned counselor

of infinite wisdom and sober thought. Cold in refusals, warm in

assents. Known to everybody, knows everybody. That's Rube.”

The Pittsburgh Courier, newspaper

 

“If you play the best clubs in the land; white clubs, as you

say; it will be a case of Greek meeting Greek. I fear nobody.”

Rube Foster, owner-manager, Negro National League

 

“We'd play a whole game with one ball if it stayed in the park.

Lopsided and black and full of tobacco juice and licorice

stains. Pitchers used to have it all their way then; spitballs

and emory balls and whatnot. Until 1921 they had a dead ball.

The only way you could get a home run is if the outfielder

tripped and fell down. The ball wasn't wrapped tight and lots of

times it'd get mashed on one side, come bouncing out there like

a Mexican jumping bean. They wouldn't throw it out of the game,

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 67

though. Only used three or four balls in a whole game. Now they

use sixty or seventy.”

Sam Crawford, outfielder

 

“On August 16, 1920; Cleveland shortstop Ray Chapman was struck

in the temple by a high, inside pitch thrown by the

Yankees’ Carl Mays. He died the next day; big league baseball's

first fatality. Thereafter, as soon as a ball got dirty, the

umpire had orders to substitute a spotless white new one, and

the ball itself had been made livelier by winding more tightly

the yarn within it. Overnight the balance shifted from the

pitcher's mound to the batter's box. The era of the home run

hitter was about to begin."

Anonymous

 

"Babe Ruth revolutionized baseball. He changed it. Judge Landis

came in and gave baseball its integrity. Ruth began hitting home

runs and gave baseball its excitement. They changed everything

from the ball itself, the construction of the bats, the

philosophy of hitting, the philosophy of pitching .... Babe Ruth

changed it. We don't realize it today, but the game of baseball

has never been the same since Babe Ruth began to hit home runs."

Red Barber, sports announcer and commentator

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 68

“I got a letter the other day asking why I didn't write about

baseball no more, as I used to write about nothing else, you

might say. Well, friends, I may as well admit that I have kind

of lost interest in the old game. A couple of years ago a

ballplayer named Babe Ruth, that was a pitcher by birth, was

made into an outfielder on account of how he could bust them,

and the masterminds that control baseball says to themselves

that, if it is home runs that the public wants to see, why,

leave us give them home runs!”

Ring Lardner, sports columnist and short story writer

 

“Starting the Cardinal farm system was no sudden stroke of

genius. It was a case of necessity being the mother of

invention. We lived a precarious existence. Other clubs would

outbid us. They had the money and the superior scouting system.

We had to take the leavings or nothing at all.”

Branch Rickey, baseball man, 1921

 

‘Given the proper physical equipment, which consists solely in

the strength to knock a ball forty feet farther than the average

man can do it, anybody can play big league ball today. In other

words, science is out the window.”

Ty Cobb, center fielder

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 69

"Baseball on the radio (which started in 1921) is part of the

background music of America. That's basic! In a small town in a

barbershop on a Saturday there's a ballgame in the background,

it goes without saying. You may be having a discussion of

somebody's herd of cattle or some professor talking, where I

grew up, about the exam he's going to give, and the barber

telling vaguely dirty jokes, but in the background of all that

is a ballgame. That's basic. Of course."

Charles McDowell, writer and columnist

 

“Don't tell me about Ruth. I've seen what he did to people. I've

seen them! Fans driving miles in open wagons from the prairies

of Oklahoma to see him in exhibition games as we headed north in

the spring. I've seen kids, men, women with a dirty piece of

paper or hoping for a grunt of recognition when they said Hiya,

Babe. He never let them down, not once. He was the greatest

crowd pleaser of them all.”

Waite Hoyt, pitcher

 

"He lived fast and loose. He didn't live too long, but he lived

while he did."

Milt Gaston, pitcher

 

After his pitchers held Ruth in check during the 1921 World

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 70

Series; (Babe hit .313 with 1 HR in a losing effort.) “We

pitched only 9 curves and 3 fastballs to Ruth during the entire

series, and of those 12, 11 set him on his backside.”

John McGraw, third baseman, manager

 

Ruth defies orders and barnstorms. He is suspended.

“Who does that big monkey think he is? In this office he's just

another player.”

Kenesaw Mountain Landis, commissioner

 

In a suit somewhat related to its 1890’s predecessor and 1960’s

antecedent it is unanimously decided by the Supreme Court that

MLB does not constitute interstate commerce under the Sherman

Antitrust Act.

“The business is giving exhibitions of baseball, which are

purely state affairs. It is true that, in order to attain for

these exhibitions the great popularity that they have achieved,

competitions must be arranged between clubs from different

cities and states. But the fact that, in order to give the

exhibitions, the Leagues must induce free persons to cross state

lines and must arrange and pay for their doing so is not enough

to change the character of the business. The transport is a mere

incident, not the essential thing. That to which it is incident,

the exhibition, although made for money, would not be called

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 71

trade of commerce in the commonly accepted use of those words.

As it is put by defendant, personal effort not related to

production is not a subject of commerce. That which in its

consummation is not commerce does not become commerce among the

states because the transportation that we have mentioned takes

place.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Supreme Court member

 

Babe Ruth is again suspended after having thrown dirt in an

umpire's eyes, stormed into the stands to chase a heckler, and

when the home crowd booed him, stood on the dugout roof shaking

his fist and shouting, ‘You're all yellow.’ Weeks later the Babe

was again suspended for using vulgar and vicious language to an

umpire.

“Your conduct was reprehensible to a great degree, shocking to

every American mother who permits her boy to go to a game. A man

of your stamp bodes no good in the profession. It seems the

period has arrived when you should allow some intelligence to

creep into a mind that has plainly been warped.”

Ban Johnson, Commissioner and executive

 

On the Babe after he hit .118 in the World Series, capping a

suspension plagued year.

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 72

“Just pitch him low curves and slow stuff and he falls all over

himself.”

John McGraw, third baseman, manager

 

“This has been a tough epoch for kings, but not even those

harassed crown-heads of Europe ever ran into greater grief than

the once-reigning monarch of the mace fell heir to this week. He

hit the ball out of the infield just three times, and during the

remainder of the engagement he spent most of his afternoons

tapping dinky blows to the pitcher or first. In his last 12

times at bat the once mighty Bambino from Blooeyland failed to

hit the ball hard enough to dent the cuticle of a custard pie.”

Grantland Rice, sportswriter

 

“I’ll get back in shape, concentrate on the game again. I've had

my last drink until next October. I'm going to my farm. I'm

going to work my head off, and maybe part of my stomach, and

then you watch me break that home run record."

Babe Ruth, right fielder

 

“Only one more thing was in demand, and Babe Ruth supplied that.

The big slugger is a keen student of the dramatic, in addition

to being the greatest home run hitter. He was playing a new role

yesterday: not the accustomed one of a renowned slugger, but

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 73

that of a penitent trying to come back after a poor season and a

poor World Series. Before the game he said that he would give a

year of his life if he could hit a home run in his first game in

the new stadium. The Babe was on trial, and he knew it better

than anyone else. The ball came in slowly, but it went out quite

rapidly, and as Ruth circled the bases he received probably the

greatest ovation of his career; the biggest crowd rose to its

feet and let loose the biggest shout in baseball history. Ruth,

jogging over the home plate, grinned broadly, lifted his cap,

and waved to the multitude.”

New York Times, newspaper

 

“Mr. Rogers Hornsby (after batting .424) is the greatest right-

handed hitter in baseball. If consistency is a jewel, then Mr.

Hornsby is a whole rope of pearls. He has led the National

League hitters for so many years that the name of the man he

succeeded is lost to the memory of the oldest inhabitant.”

Joe Williams, New York World-Telegram

 

“Baseball is the only thing I know.”

Rogers Hornsby, second baseman

 

"His name is in the record books more times than any other

pitcher, in more different categories than any other pitcher.

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 74

And he was a lovable person. In a sense the whole nation knew

that Walter Johnson was doomed to play with the Washington

Senators, rooted for him to get into a World Series, which he

finally did."

Shirley Povich, sports commentator

 

On Babe Ruth’s 1925 relapse and “the belly ache heard round the

world. ”It is doubtful that Ruth again will be the superstar he

was from 1919 through 1924. Next year Ruth will be 32, and at 32

the Babe will be older than Eddie Collins, Walter Johnson and Ty

Cobb at that age. Babe has lived a much more strenuous life.”

Fred Lieb, sportswriter

 

“He (Lou Gehrig) was the most valuable player the Yankees ever

had, because he was the prime source of their greatest asset: an

implicit confidence in themselves.”

New York World-Telegram, newspaper

 

Christy Mathewson died of tuberculosis at age 45. His lungs had

never recovered from exposure to poison gas in World War II.

“Why should God wish to take a thoroughbred like Matty so soon,

and leave some others down here that could well be spared?”

Kenesaw Mountain Landis, commissioner

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 75

On 39 year old Grover Cleveland Alexander’s coming in to relieve

in the seventh game of the 1926 World Series. He had won two

series games for the Cardinals after having been given up on

midseason by the Cubs. “I can see him yet, walking in from the

left field bullpen through the gray mist. The Yankee fans

recognized him right off, of course, but you didn't hear a sound

from anywhere in that stadium. They just sat there and watched

him walk in. And he took his time. He just came straggling

along, a lean old Nebraskan, wearing a Cardinals sweater, his

face wrinkled, that cap sitting on top of his head and tilted to

one side. That's the way he liked to wear it.” This was truly

one of baseball’s most memorable moments.

Les Bell, third baseman

 

Hornsby, playing manager, met Ol’ Pete on the mound. Alexander

told him he planned to pitch Lazzeri hard and inside, Hornsby

objected; saying; “You can't do that. Lazzeri is sure to hit it

out of the park.” Alexander was unconcerned and said; “If he

swings at it he'll most likely hit it foul. Then I'm going to

come outside with my breaking pitch.” Hornsby backed off. “Who

am I to tell you how to pitch?”

Grover Cleveland Alexander, pitcher and Rogers Hornsby, second

baseman and playing manager

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 76

"My father, because baseball is dynastic, always said that his

saddest moment in life was that famous 1926 last game of the

World Series when a drunk and much superannuated Grover

Cleveland Alexander was brought in with the bases loaded and

Tony Lazzeri almost hit a home run that went foul by a couple

feet and then struck out, thereby winning, ultimately, two

innings later, the game for the Cardinals."

Stephen Jay Gould, essayist

 

On the 1927 New York Yankees, a solid candidate for the best

team of all time, with the second coming of “Murderer’s Row.”

“When we got to the ballpark we knew we were going to win.

That's all there was to it. We weren't cocky. I wouldn't call it

confidence, either. We just knew. Like when you go to sleep, you

know the sun is gonna come up in the morning.”

George Pipgras, pitcher

 

"The combination of Ruth and Gehrig was not only wonderful in

baseball terms, but it was aesthetically pleasing because they

were so different in character. Lou Gehrig was a good man, a

family man, a steady fellow. The exact opposite of Babe Ruth,

who was out of control all the time. They both batted left-

handed but Ruth's swing was nothing like Gehrig's swing. But

think of the pitchers in those days, who had to face Babe

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 77

Ruth, then Lou Gehrig!"

Roger Angell, sportswriter, et al

 

“The first Zachary offering was a fast one which sailed over for

a called strike. The next was high. The Babe took a vicious

swing at the third-pitched ball and the bat connected with a

crash that was audible in all parts of the stands. While the

crowd cheered and the Yankee players roared their greeting the

Babe made his triumphant, almost regal tour of the paths, and

when he embedded his spikes in the rubber disk to officially

homer 60, hats were tossed in the air, papers were torn up and

tossed liberally, and the spirit of celebration permeated the

place.”

New York Times, newspaper

 

“Sixty! Count 'em, sixty! Let's see some other sonofabitch match

that!”

Babe Ruth, right fielder

 

On Ty Cobb’s retirement at age 41.

“It will be a long time before the game develops a second Cobb,

and then it will be just that: a second Cobb. You've seen the

first and only.

Joe Williams, New York World-Telegram

Baseball; the Last Great American Pastime

Page 78

 

"If ever there were a source for rueful memories, at least for

me, it's baseball. A World Series game I could have seen and

missed, and it was a memorable one. Nineteen twenty-nine. My

friend Jimmy O'Hare says, Let's go, it's the Cubs playing

against the Athletics. The Athletics have Lefty Grove, that

fireball pitcher; was gonna face Hornsby and Tyler and

Stevenson, and Charlie Grimm, Gabby Hartnett — the sluggers!

Speedball against the sluggers. Connie Mack puts in a guy he

didn't use all season, an old guy named Howard Ehmke, with a

ball that's slower than slow. Howard Ehmke strikes out 13 Cubs;

they broke their backs swinging at his slowball. I missed that

game; Jimmy saw it. A rueful memory of loss."

Studs Terkel, author, historian