The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth (46 page)

There was little doubt that Ruth would soon join the list. He arrived at the Stadium later than the other players, accompanied by a friend and his nurse. Again, he was frail and shrunken, wrapped in his big overcoat. He slowly changed into the pinstriped uniform, the whole deal, including baseball shoes and stockings, posed for pictures, then added the overcoat again.

“What took ’em so long to retire your uniform?” Waite Hoyt asked. “They retired mine in 1930 when they sent me to Detroit.”

The Babe smiled.

Everything was an effort. He waited in the runway that ran from the dugout to the clubhouse as the ceremonies began, but his nurse suggested that he should go back to the clubhouse where it was warmer. When his time was near, he came back through the runway and sat in the dugout. He picked up a fielder’s mitt that some present-day player had left on the bench and said, “Christ, you could catch a basketball with this.” He talked a bit with Mel Harder, now the Indians’ pitching coach, remembering a day when he had gone 5-for-5 against Harder. It was a thousand years ago.

He stepped out of his overcoat and went onto the field when his name was called by Mel Allen—“George Herman Ruth…Babe Ruth”—and used a bat as a cane as he walked toward his old teammates and the crowd noise churned around him. Again he went to the microphone….

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said in the battered, painful voice, “I want to say one thing. I am proud I hit the first home run here in 1923. It was marvelous to see 13 or 14 players who were my teammates going back 25 years. I’m telling you it makes me proud and happy to be here.”

He never would be back.

Eleven days later, he checked into Memorial Hospital. Amazingly, during those 11 days, he had been to three last stops—St. Louis, Sioux City, and Sioux Falls—for Ford Motors. He ran into John Drebinger, the
Times
sportswriter, in the hotel in St. Louis. Drebinger saw him, didn’t want to be a bother, but Ruth lit up.

“Hey, you old bastard,” he said to John Drebinger. “How’re you doing, Joe?”

The cancer was everywhere now, in his liver, his lungs, his kidneys. A young Dominican priest, Father Thomas Kaufman from St. Catherine of Siena Parish, was assigned to him. Father Kaufman had a link to Ruth because he was from Baltimore and for one day during a family crisis he and his brother had been residents of St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. Ruth liked that. He knew by now he had cancer. He also knew that he was dying. He was resigned to his situation.

The room on the ninth floor quickly filled with boxes of mail. People also sent good luck charms, many of them religious icons that had worked in their own situations. A statue of Blessed Martin DePorres, known as the Negro saint, stood on the Babe’s nightstand. On July 21, Ruth’s condition worsened, and Father Kaufman gave him the Last Rites of the Church. It was a strangely controversial move. The priest received a lot of positive mail, but also some hate mail from Catholics who thought that Ruth’s profligate life didn’t deserve forgiveness. One was written entirely in ecclesiastical Latin.

Ruth rallied the next day. On the night of July 26, he even left the hospital, taken to the Astor Theater for the premiere of
The Babe Ruth Story.
This was another controversial move. Dorothy was irate.

“I was totally taken by surprise,” she said. “When I had left Dad that afternoon, he was sedated, and I had no idea that he would be at the theater that night…. It occurred to me there was only one person who could have bypassed the security guards so easily—Claire. When I confronted her, she admitted she was responsible. She told me that it was necessary for him to be there and, after all, no harm had been done.”

He arrived at the theater with no expression on his face, a sick man in a place where he shouldn’t have been. He was taken back to the hospital halfway through the movie. The movie was so bad, so cliché-filled and unbelievable, that people said they wished they also could have left.
The Babe Ruth Story
was killed across the board by the critics.

“No home run,” Wanda Hale of the
Daily News
said. “It’s no more than a scratch single, a feeble blooper back of second base.”

The wait for Babe Ruth to die began. He was beyond treatments, and all efforts made now were to make him as comfortable as possible. The visitors’ list to the ninth-floor room was cut down to family and closest friends. No ballplayers were on the list. Dorothy was surprised one afternoon to arrive and find a tall, attractive, redheaded woman in the room. The woman introduced herself as Loretta. She said she had been the Babe’s girlfriend for the past ten years.

Dorothy was stunned, then pleased. She liked the idea of Loretta.

“She was his constant companion and catered to his every need—she even went hunting, fishing, boating, and golfing with him,” Dorothy said. “I’m glad that at last he was able to find some pleasant female companionship. Lord knows, he deserved it.”

The fog settled in for one last time. Loretta? What else did nobody know about the life of Babe Ruth? What else would nobody ever know?

Dorothy would claim, years later, that she was his natural daughter, born out of wedlock to a family friend, Juanita Ellis. True? False? There were no documents to prove what she said. There also were no documents to disprove it.

The question of race would linger. Was the Babe, by legal definition, a black man? He had heard the bad words for as long as he played. He had been handed the wrongful stereotype that would be attached to the black athlete—the natural talent, abilities transmitted by the touch of God, not acquired through industry and intelligence. He never had the chance to manage a team. So many of the pieces fit. If not a black man, he had been touched by the prejudices against a black man.

The truth? The fog settled in for one last time.

On August 9, the Babe signed a revised will that Claire and his lawyers had drawn up. On August 11, it was announced that he was on the critical list. Major League Baseball asked that a minute of silence be observed before all games to pray for his recovery. Neighborhood kids and photographers clustered outside the hospital.

On August 16, at 8:01
P
.
M
., the Caliph of Clout, the Monster of Mash, the Home Run King, the Sultan of Swat, the Bam, the Big Bam, the Bambino, the Babe, George Herman Ruth, 53 years old, but thought he was 54, died in his sleep. There were no last words.

“The Babe died a beautiful death,” Father Kaufman said to reporters outside Memorial Hospital. “He said his prayers and lapsed into a sleep. He died in his sleep.”

The first suggestion was to hold the wake at the Universal Funeral Home on Lexington Avenue. That was soon changed. The Babe instead lay in state for two days and nights at Yankee Stadium. An estimated 77,000 people came past to pay their respects. Another 75,000 watched the funeral cortege as it left St. Patrick’s Cathedral on August 19, 1948.

The morning had been rainy, but the sun broke out when the services ended and the long procession drove slowly through the city.

EPILOGUE

B
ABE
R
UTH
is buried in a hillside plot at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Valhalla, New York, next to Claire, who died in 1976. His statue stands at the entrance to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

The fascination with his career and life continues. He is a bombastic, sloppy hero from our bombastic, sloppy history, origins undetermined, a folk tale of American success. His moon face is as recognizable today as it was when he stared out at Tom Zachary on a certain September afternoon in 1927.

If sport has become the national religion, Babe Ruth is the patron saint. He stands at the heart of the game he played, the promise of a warm summer night, a bag of peanuts, and a beer.

And just maybe, the longest ball ever hit out of the park.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS

Allen, Frederick Lewis.
Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s.
New York: Harper & Row, 1931.

.
Since Yesterday: The 1930s in America.
New York: Harper & Row, 1940.

Allen, Lee.
The American League Story.
New York: Hill & Wang, 1965.

Barrow, Edward Grant (with James M. Kahn).
My Fifty Years in Baseball.
New York: Coward-McCann, 1951.

Beim, George (with Julia Ruth Stevens).
Babe Ruth: A Daughter’s Portrait.
Dallas: Taylor Publishing, 1998.

Berg, A. Scott.
Lindbergh.
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998.

Breslin, Jimmy.
Damon Runyon: A Life.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

Chapman, John.
Tell It to Sweeney: An Informal History of the New York Daily News.
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1961.

Creamer, Robert W.
Babe: The Legend Comes to Life.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974.

Crenson, Matthew A.
Building the Invisible Orphanage: A Prehistory of the American Welfare System.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Daniel, Dan (with anecdotes by H. G. Salsinger).
The Real Babe Ruth.
St. Louis: C. C. Spink & Son, 1948.

Eig, Jonathan.
Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig.
New York: Simon amp; Schuster, 2005.

Fowler, Gene.
Beau James: The Life and Times of Jimmy Walker.
New York: Stratford Press, 1949.

.
Skyline: A Reporter’s Reminiscence of the Twenties.
New York: Viking Press, 1961.

Frick, Ford.
Games, Asterisks, and People: Memoirs of a Lucky Fan.
New York: Crown, 1973.

Gilbert C.F.X., Brother.
Young Babe Ruth: His Early Life and Baseball from the Memoirs of a Xaverian Brother.
Edited by Harry Rothgerber. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1999.

Goldman, Herbert G.
Jolson: The Legend Comes to Life.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Harris, Paul F. Sr.
Babe Ruth: The Dark Side.
Glen Burnie, Md.: Self-published, 1998.

Holtzman, Jerome.
No Cheering in the Press Box.
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1974.

.
Jerome Holtzman on Baseball: A History of Baseball Scribes.
Champaign, Ill.: Sports Publishing, L.L.C., 2005.

Keene, Kerry, Raymond Sinibaldi, and David Hickey.
The Babe in Red Stockings: An In-Depth Chronicle of Babe Ruth with the Boston Red Sox, 19141919.
Champaign, Ill.: Sagamore Publishing, 1997.

Kelley, Brent.
In the Shadow of the Babe: Interviews with Baseball Players Who Played With or Against Babe Ruth.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1995.

Lardner, Ring, Jr.
Some Champions, Sketches, and Fiction by Ring Lardner.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976.

Leuchtenberg, William E.
The Perils of Prosperity: 19141932.
University of Chicago Press, 1958.

Lieb, Fred.
Baseball As I Have Known It.
New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1977.

Meany, Tom.
Babe Ruth.
New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1947.

McCarthy, Kevin.
Babe Ruth in Florida.
Haverford, Pa.: Infinity Publishing, 2002.

Miller, Ernestine.
The Babe Book.
Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2000.

Morley, Christopher.
Christopher Morley’s New York.
New York: Fordham University Press, 1988.

Pilat, Oliver.
Pegler: Angry Man of the Press.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1963.

Pirrone, Dorothy Ruth (with Chris Martens).
My Dad, the Babe: Growing Up with an American Hero.
Boston: Quinlan Press, 1988.

Reichler, Joe (editor).
The Baseball Encyclopedia.
7th edition. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1988.

Reisler, Jim.
Babe Ruth: Launching the Legend.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.

(editor).
Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs: Damon Runyon on Baseball.
New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005.

Rice, Grantland.
The Tumult and the Shouting: My Life in Sport.
New York: A. S. Barnes & Co., 1954.

Ritter, Lawrence S.
The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It.
New York: Macmillan & Co., 1966.

Robertson, John G.
The Babe Chases 60: The Fabulous 1927 Season, Home Run by Home Run.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1999.

Rubin, Louis D., Jr.
Babe Ruth’s Ghost and Other Historical and Literary Speculations.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.

Ruth, Babe (as told to Bob Considine).
The Babe Ruth Story.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1948.

Ruth, Babe, Mrs. (with Bill Slocum).
The Babe and I.
New York: Avon Books, 1959.

Ruth, George Herman.
Babe Ruth’s Own Book of Baseball.
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928.

Smelser, Marshall.
The Life That Ruth Built: A Biography.
New York: Quadrangle/New York Times Books, 1975.

Smith, Mortimer.
My School the City.
Washington, D.C.: Regnery/Gateway, 1980.

Smith, Robert.
Babe Ruth’s America.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974.

Sobol, Ken.
Babe Ruth and the American Dream.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1974.

Stevens, Julia Ruth.
Major League Dad: A Daughter’s Cherished Memories.
Chicago: Triumph Books, 2001.

Stevens, John D.
Sensationalism and the New York Press.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1961.

Stout, Glenn, and Richard A. Johnson.
Red Sox Century.
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000..

Yankees Century.
New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

Terkel, Studs.
Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1970.

Trachtenberg, Leo.
The Wonder Team: The True Story of the Incomparable 1927 New York Yankees.
Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1995.

Wagenheim, Kal.
Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend.
New York: Henry Holt, 1974.

Walsh, Christy.
Adios to Ghosts.
New York: Self-published, 1937.

Weldon, Martin.
Babe Ruth.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1948.

Werber, Bill.
Circling the Bases with Bill Werber.
Self-published.

(with C. Paul Rogers III).
Memories of a Ballplayer: Bill Werber and Baseball in the 1930s.
Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 2001.

Wilson, Nick.
Voices from the Pastime: Oral Histories of Surviving Major Leaguers, Negro Leaguers, Cuban Leaguers and Writers, 19201934.
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2000.

Wood, Allan.
Babe Ruth and the 1918 Red Sox.
Lincoln, Neb.: Writers Club Press, 2000.

WEB SITES

A Note About Web Sites

The Web brings an entirely new dimension to book research. A few taps of the fingers instantly can bring up facts ranging from the spelling of a middle name to the life story of, say, New York mayor Jimmy Walker. Any list of the Web sites visited during this project would be incomplete. Following are some notable ones.

www.baseballlibrary.com

www.highbeam.com (
Sports Illustrated
, etc.)

www.baseball-links.com

www.paperofrecord.com (
Sporting News
, etc.)

www.indiejournal.com (
The Baseball Tragedy of 1920
by Jeff Youngblood)

www.angelfire.com/pa/1927 (the unofficial 1927 New York Yankees home page)

www.stevesteinberg.net (Miller Huggins, Urban Shocker)

www.asms.k12.ar.us/armem/richter/index.htm (Hot Springs, Ark.)

www.sfsu.edu/~mpmott (
Making the World Safe for Baseball
by Michael Mott)

www.sabr.org

www.aafla.org (
Baseball
magazine)

www.geocities.com/flapper_culture (the Jazz Age)

www.yankeeclassic.com/miskatonic

www.violetville.org/neighborhoodhistory

www.irishlegends.com (Knute Rockne)

www.celiatan.com

www.wikipedia.com

www.xroads.virginia.edu (
The Babe Ruth Times
)

www.thedeadballera.com

www.rauchway.ucdavis.edu/altercations.htm (
The Red Sox Curse
by Eric Rauchway)

www.firstworldwar.com

The search engine ProQuest, accessed through membership in the Society for American Baseball Research, was invaluable. ProQuest was the entry to the back pages of the
New York Times
,
Boston Globe
,
Atlanta Constitution
,
Chicago Tribune
,
Los Angeles Times
, and
Chicago Defender
.