Babe Ruth: Legends in Sports (7 page)

The suspension finally shocked Ruth into taking his life and his career seriously. He separated from Helen, and she moved
from the farm back to Boston. He felt badly about his marriage falling apart, but he knew he had hardly been the ideal husband.
All winter long Ruth tried to make amends for his horrible performance in 1925.

He turned down a chance to make money on another exhibition tour. He wrote a magazine article in which he apologized to the
fans and admitted he had acted like “a boob.” Determined to get back in shape, he put himself in the hands of gym owner Artie
McGovern.

It helped that he had the love and support of Claire Hodgson. Like Brother Matthias, Ruth respected her opinion. When she
told him that he had to
change, Ruth listened. He realized that if he did not, he would lose more than his baseball career. He might also lose her.

Every day he spent four hours at the gym, working out. At first the exercise sessions, which included long walks, handball,
weightlifting, and steam baths, left him exhausted. But ever so slowly he began to lose weight and replace flab with muscle.

By February of 1926 he was ready to play again. He had lost nearly thirty pounds and almost ten inches from his waist. Although
no one would ever accuse Ruth of being slender, he was once again a powerful athlete.

Meanwhile, the Yankees were invigorated by the addition of infielder Tony Lazzeri, a terrific hitter, and the continued improvement
of first baseman Lou Gehrig, who was beginning to show that he was almost as dangerous at the plate as Ruth. Hodgson stayed
close to Ruth all year and she kept him from running around all hours of the night.

The Yankees got off to a great start and just kept going. Babe Ruth wasn’t just back, he was all the way back, hitting .372
and cracking 47 home runs while driving in 155. Tony Lazzeri and Lou Gehrig
each knocked in over 100 runs as well, and the Yankees cruised to the pennant. They then met the St. Louis Cardinals in the
World Series.

The Yankees were big favorites, but the Cardinals were a talented team. After New York won the first game, the Cardinals came
back to win the next two. Ruth, in a post-season slump, collected only two singles in the first three games. Game four in
St. Louis was a must-win for New York.

Ruth came to the plate determined to do what it took to give his team that win. In the first inning he hit the first pitch
he saw for a home run. In the third inning he hit another home run. Then, in the sixth inning, he truly outdid himself.

With the count at three-and-two, Ruth swung and hit the ball as hard as possible. It soared deep to center field. Announcer
Graham MacNamee was broadcasting the game to the nation over the radio, one of the first national broadcasts. Fans all over
the country heard his description:

The Babe hits it into the centerfield bleachers for a home run! A home run! Did you hear what I said? Oh, what a shot! … This
is a World
Series record, three home runs in one series game … They tell me that’s the first ball ever hit into the center field stand.
That’s a mile and a half from here!

It wasn’t quite that far, but it was the farthest ball ever hit in St. Louis. Even Cardinal fans applauded his hit, which
was in fact the first ball ever hit into the centerfield bleachers. Not that the ball stopped there — it bounced out of the
bleachers into the street!

No one knew, however, that the home run meant even more to a little boy listening to MacNamee’s broadcast. Young Johnny Sylvester
had been badly hurt in a fall from a horse and was laid up in a New York hospital. His father had asked for the Cardinals
and Yankees to send him some autographed baseballs to cheer his son up. The teams did, and Ruth added a promise that he would
hit a home run for Johnny. The boy heard MacNamee announce all three of Ruth’s three home runs. The smile that lit his face
didn’t go away for days.

The Yankees won 10–5. They took the next game, too, thanks to a great save made by Ruth. The Yankees
were up in the series, but the Cardinals fought back and took game six to tie. It came down to the final game, and as it turned
out, the final pitch.

The Yankees trailed 3–2 in the ninth. With two out, Ruth walked. If he could score, the Yankees would tie the game. Yankee
outfielder Bob Meusel dug in at the plate. Suddenly, Ruth took off, trying to steal second! The throw from home came in fast,
hard, and on target. Ruth was out, and so were the Yankees.

Ruth was roundly criticized for the play. It dampened an otherwise great series and a great comeback for the Babe.

The loss only made Ruth and the Yankees more determined for victory in 1927. Ruth had proven to his teammates that he was
in control of his life, so no one worried anymore about the way he acted off the field. Although he still liked to have fun
and still had an enormous appetite, he knew when to stop and made sure that he was ready to play every day.

And play he did. No one will ever forget Babe Ruth and the 1927 Yankees.

Everything went right. Many people still consider the 1927 Yankees the greatest team in the history of baseball. They had
great pitching, great fielding,
and great hitting. They didn’t just beat other teams, they beat them badly. One reason was the emergence of Lou Gehrig.

The very first time a Yankee scout saw Gehrig playing for Columbia University, he called him “another Ruth.” Now in his third
season in the major leagues, Gehrig was about to serve notice that the scouting report was accurate. Gehrig hit fourth in
the Yankees lineup right behind Ruth. Together, the two Yankees stars formed the greatest slugging duo in the history of baseball.
Sportswriters dubbed the Yankee lineup “Murderers’ Row.”

From the start of the season, Ruth and Gehrig sent shivers down the backs of American League pitchers. It seemed as if one
of them hit one or two home runs every day. The Yankees scored runs in bunches. One opposing pitcher admitted, “I would rather
pitch a doubleheader against any other club than a single game against the Yankees.”

Ruth, in particular, seemed invigorated. Every home run hit by Gehrig seemed to spur Ruth on. After all, he had won the major
league home run crown in six of the past eight seasons. He didn’t want to lose his title to his own teammate.

By mid-season the Yankees were far ahead in the pennant race. The big question became who would lead the league in home runs
— Ruth or Gehrig — and whether either man would break Ruth’s existing record of fifty-nine home runs.

Entering September, Ruth led Gehrig by two home runs, 43 to 41. Then, on September 6 in Boston, with both men stuck on 44
homers, Ruth pulled ahead. As the Yankees split a doubleheader, Ruth cracked three home runs, including one observers believed
was the longest ever hit at Fenway Park. Then the next day he hit two more, putting him only ten home runs behind the record.

Over the final weeks of the season, fans all over the country kept track of Ruth’s home runs. And Ruth, knowing everyone was
watching, responded with a remarkable performance.

On September 22 his 56th home run in the ninth inning led the Yankees to their 105th win of the season, tying a mark set by
the 1912 Boston Red Sox. As he toured the bases with the game-winning hit, dozens of fans poured onto the field and ran with
him around the bases. Some of them tried to take
his bat, but Ruth held it high over his head, laughing and dashing between his fans on his way to the plate. The record seemed
within his grasp.

But over the next week, Ruth hit only one more homer. With only three games left in the season, the record seemed out of reach.
It would take what sportswriters called a “Ruthian” performance to hit sixty home runs. Of course, no one was more “Ruthian”
than Babe Ruth himself.

On September 29, Ruth broke loose and cracked two home runs to tie the record. After hitting number fifty-nine he shook Lou
Gehrig’s hand at home plate and then tipped his hat to the crowd. Even Gehrig, who had stalled at “only” forty-seven home
runs, stood in awe of Ruth.

Ruth had two more games to try for number sixty.

The next day, the Yankees and Washington Senators were tied 2–2 in the eighth inning. Although Ruth collected two hits and
scored both Yankees runs, he had yet to belt out home run number sixty.

With one out, Yankee Mark Koenig tripled. Then Ruth stepped to the plate. He took one ball and one strike. Then Tom Zachary
threw another pitch.

The ball was low and inside. With the form he had made classic, Ruth swung down on the pitch and then drove it like a golf
ball. The drive sailed to right field, curving toward the line. The umpire tracked the ball to make the call as Ruth started
a slow dance toward first.

As the ball rattled into the seats, the umpire signaled fair. Then he twirled his arm above his head, the signal that the
hit was a home run.

Yankee Stadium exploded with cheers. Ruth ran around the bases slowly and deliberately, making sure he touched each base.
The hit gave the Yankees a 4–2 lead. They hung on through the last inning to win the game.

Ruth was mobbed by reporters in the clubhouse. He had a huge grin on his face. Only two years before, many had thought his
career was over. Now he had done something no one else had ever done in the history of the game.

“Sixty!” he yelled. “Count ’em, sixty! Let’s see someone else do that!” Then a reporter asked him if he thought he would break
his own record in 1928. “I don’t know and I don’t care,” he replied with a laugh.

As wonderful as hitting sixty was, Ruth knew that the Yankees needed to win the World Series to make the record truly meaningful.
If the Yankees lost the series, everyone would say he had failed.

He needn’t have worried. The Pittsburgh Pirates, the National League champions, were a good team built around Paul and Lloyd
Waner, a couple of singles hitters. Before the first game Ruth looked at them and quipped, “Why, they’re no bigger than a
couple of little kids. If I was that size I’d be afraid of getting hurt.”

The 1927 Yankees were a machine. They beat the Pirates 5–4 in the first game and 6–2 in the second. In game three, Ruth blasted
his first home run of the series, leading his team to an 8–1 victory. He hit another blast in game four to give the Yankees
a 3–1 lead, but the Pirates rallied to tie the game 3–3. Then in the ninth New York loaded the bases. The Pirates pitcher
uncorked a wild pitch and Yankee outfielder Earle Combs jogged home with the winning run. Combs hadn’t broken a sweat, and
neither did the Yankees in sweeping the Pirates. For the second time in his Yankee career, Ruth was a world champion.

When the 1928 season began, New York let every other team know that they were still the champs by winning thirty-four of their
first forty-two games. Although Ruth didn’t break his home run record, he did come close, slamming fifty-four home runs. The
Yankees won the pennant once again and prepared to face the Cardinals.

On paper, it looked as if the Cardinals would have the edge over the Yankees. After their quick start, New York didn’t really
play very well in the last half of the season. Several New York players would miss the World Series with injuries and Ruth
was bothered by a sore knee.

But it seems that no one bothered to tell the Yankees that they were considered the underdogs. They surged forward to sweep
St. Louis in four straight games. Once again, Babe Ruth was the big story. He ended the series with perhaps the greatest day
of his career.

Ruth wasn’t exactly invisible in the first three games, though. Although Lou Gehrig gathered the headlines with three long
home runs, Ruth collected three hits in game one, two more in game two, and made the play of the game in the third
contest, scoring the go-ahead run by dashing home on a ground ball and knocking the ball out of the catcher’s glove.

In game four, however, the legendary player turned in a truly legendary performance. Ironically, he started out as the goat,
for in the first inning he dropped an easy fly ball. When he came to bat in the fourth inning, St. Louis led 1–0. With one
swing —
Boom!
— Ruth tied the game with a home run.

Then St. Louis went up by one. The score was still 2–1 when Ruth came to bat in the seventh inning. With two strikes the St.
Louis pitcher tried an illegal quick pitch. The umpire refused to allow it. Ruth then calmly sent the next offering out of
the ballpark. As the St. Louis crowd booed, Ruth laughed his way around the bases, waving at them. Gehrig followed with a
home run to put the Yankees ahead.

When Ruth next took the field, St. Louis fans booed him. Some threw soda bottles at him. Ruth picked one up, wound up, and
pretended to throw it back. Many fans ducked, but others just laughed as Ruth harmlessly tossed the bottle aside. All of a
sudden, they were on his side.

Ruth came up once more in the eighth and put
the game away with another home run, his third of the game. But he wasn’t done yet.

With two out in the ninth, the Cardinals were down to their last at bat. A St. Louis batter hit a towering fly ball down the
line. Ruth took off, running full speed. Fans in the stands threw paper to try to distract him. It didn’t work. Still running,
Ruth reached into the stands and snagged the ball without breaking stride. He held it over his head, whooping, “There’s the
ball! The one that says it’s all over!”

For the Cardinals, it was. The Yankees were champions again.

Babe Ruth was at his peak. The Yankees had won three straight pennants and two World Series since he’d taken control of his
life. Now he was more beloved than ever.

But Babe Ruth was almost thirty-four years old, ancient for a ballplayer. It would soon be time for him to look to the future.

CHAPTER SEVEN