1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,600 This is Retro Sports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history. 2 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:13,000 The National Broadcasting Company presents a biography in sound, The Legend of the Babe. 3 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:17,600 We often hear the expression that someone made a name for himself. 4 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:21,000 One well-known man in our time did that almost literally. 5 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:25,000 When Babe Ruth signed his first contract for the Boston Red Sox, 6 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:30,000 he gave his name as Earhart, E-H-R-H-A-R-D-T. 7 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:36,000 Later, Ruth told a New York baseball writer that his real name was Earhart, E-R-H-A-R-D-T. 8 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:38,000 You see, he left out an H this time. 9 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:44,000 And then later in life, the most famous baseball player of our time decided that his name had been Ruth all along. 10 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:50,000 By that time, it didn't make any difference. Everyone knew him as the Babe, a man who really made a name for himself. 11 00:00:50,000 --> 00:01:07,000 Come and listen to a tale I will tell Of a hero we all love so well 12 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:22,000 He played ball, what a hitter, what a man And he'll never be forgotten in our land 13 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:30,000 This is a biography in sound, The Legend of the Babe, produced and transcribed by the National Broadcasting Company. 14 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:38,000 Our narrator is the famous sports announcer Mel Allen, and our music is written and sung by folk singer Tom Glazer. 15 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:45,000 Here's the babe, here's the babe, hear the frenzied people rave 16 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:52,000 Send the fielders back against the farthest wall 17 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:59,000 When he missed, what a miss, all the air around him hissed 18 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:06,000 When he hit the ball, there was no ball at all 19 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:13,000 This is a land of heroes and legends. Maybe we should choose scientists and scholars, poets and statesmen. 20 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:17,000 But that's not the way we are. We choose our heroes for ourselves. 21 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:23,000 We spin yarns about Daniel Boone and his long Kentucky rifle and Davy Crockett with his coon-skin cap. 22 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:29,000 There was Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack, John Henry, the steel driving man, and Johnny Appleseed, 23 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:33,000 who spread the bloom of apple blossoms through the wilderness. 24 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:37,000 These were big men in our land. You'll find some of them in history books. 25 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:43,000 Some live only in the hearts of the people. Those are all legends from the past. 26 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:50,000 But there's one legend we helped create ourselves in our own time, The Legend of the Babe. 27 00:02:50,000 --> 00:03:01,000 When Babe Ruth died on August 16, 1948, just seven years ago, 28 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:06,000 there were 41,194 names in the book Who's Who in America. 29 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:10,000 These were the names of the most notable men and women of our time. 30 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:14,000 The name George Herman Ruth wasn't among them. 31 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,000 But don't worry, no one will ever have to look him up in any book. 32 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:22,000 Just say The Babe or The Bambino or The Bigfella. They'll know who you mean. 33 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:26,000 He's well remembered by people in every walk of life. 34 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:32,000 That is not all that Babe Ruth meant to baseball, nor to the United States of America. 35 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,000 He represented a part of our American dream. 36 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,000 Ruth was a big kid at the time. 37 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:47,000 He had a moon face, he was that day was wearing a blue suit and a grey check cap. 38 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:49,000 We fellas who played with him, we learned to love him. 39 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:54,000 Sometimes he became a little gruff, sometimes he became a little like, oh, you'd say, 40 00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:01,000 sort of a big shaggy guy, you know, and a fella that could get a little off base once in a while. 41 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:06,000 But nevertheless, you had to pat him on the back. He had a heart as big as gold. 42 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:17,000 He has had probably more direct influence on the youth of this country than any other player during my time. 43 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:25,000 It seems almost unbelievable that in three years of frequent competition with an individual like The Babe, 44 00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:29,000 that there would be no spoken word between us. 45 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:36,000 As Washington and Lincoln still live in the White House, so Babe Ruth will always be in the Yankee Stadium. 46 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:41,000 In a lot of ways, he was like a little boy at a circus. 47 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,000 If he hit a home run that day, he would give me a baseball. 48 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:51,000 And sometimes if he struck out two or three times, he'd still give me a ball saying, kid, you bring me luck. 49 00:04:51,000 --> 00:05:00,000 The other thing about Babe which always upset me was that Babe ended in baseball, a rather embittered man. 50 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:05,000 You know, in the days of the Depression, one of the few things you could really count on was the surety of going up to the Bronx 51 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:10,000 and sitting in the Yankee Stadium and seeing the Babes slam the pill around. 52 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:15,000 Babe Ruth, you are like a lighted candle coming into a blind man's house. 53 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:20,000 You know, no one can say just why certain individuals stand out in certain fields of activity. 54 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:24,000 It's not just because of their accomplishments, it's something beyond that. 55 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:29,000 Babe Ruth may or may not have been the greatest ball player yet. You can get an argument about that. 56 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:35,000 It's true that he hit 60 home runs one year more than anyone else ever hit in a single season, 714 in his lifetime. 57 00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:37,000 But you can say, so what to that? 58 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:42,000 He holds 56 records, if you want to check the statistics, but what do baseball records mean? 59 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:47,000 No, his fame has something to do with us, with the way our country ticks. 60 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:52,000 And of course, the special way we feel about a game called baseball. 61 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:58,000 One of Babe Ruth's fans was a man who played an important part in government and politics for many years, 62 00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:01,000 the former Postmaster General James A. Farley. 63 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:07,000 I am sure that I have met my share of the great and famous men of our time. 64 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:12,000 And I am proud to say that among them was the incomparable Babe Ruth. 65 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:15,000 We enjoyed a fine and lasting friendship. 66 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,000 We had many similar points of view and interest. 67 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,000 And among them, a love of baseball. 68 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:29,000 I've been a baseball fan ever since I played on the hometown lots as a young boy in Rockland County and along the Hudson River. 69 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:37,000 I have no idea of the number of times I have watched big league games, and especially the Yanks and the Babe. 70 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:43,000 I cannot understand those persons who think it is strange that we Americans have made a hero of a man 71 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:46,000 who hit a baseball father than anyone else. 72 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:53,000 But actually that is not all that Babe Ruth meant to baseball, nor to the United States of America. 73 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:56,000 He represented a part of our American dream. 74 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:59,000 He made his own way through poverty and loneliness. 75 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:03,000 And we neither asked nor cared about his social background. 76 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:06,000 We admired him for his own particular skills. 77 00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:11,000 And we loved him for his generosity, his compassion and human qualities. 78 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:19,000 It is a tribute to him and to others who love baseball that today no one would question the integrity of the sport. 79 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:24,000 Of course, Babe, the player was a sight no man who ever watched him walk up to the plate can ever forget. 80 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:29,000 I still remember the thrill that I felt when he hit the ball out of the park, 81 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:34,000 when he throttled around the bases with those quick short steps of his, 82 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:39,000 and then tipped his cap just before he ducked into the dugout. 83 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:44,000 God rest you, Babe. We will never forget you. 84 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:47,000 The facts about Babe Ruth's life are simple and familiar. 85 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:50,000 After all, he lived his life in newsprint. 86 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:54,000 He was born in Baltimore on February 6th, 1895. 87 00:07:54,000 --> 00:08:01,000 But it wasn't until his 40th birthday when Newspaper Man did some research that he found out the true date of his birth. 88 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:07,000 His mother died early in his life, and his father made a living now and then working on the waterfront. 89 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:13,000 George grew up on the streets and alleyways until he was sent to St. Mary's, an industrial school for boys. 90 00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:18,000 He was scared, but acted tough so he wouldn't show it, and he was a little like that all his life. 91 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:25,000 He was an awkward kid with a wide face and floppy ears, and at first he was shy and sullen and sort of stood apart. 92 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:32,000 But they had a rocky playground there, a cracked bat that was spliced together and a lopsided ball wrapped with layers of tape. 93 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:36,000 Even at St. Mary's they shared a game with kids everywhere. 94 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:39,000 You can't take that away because you're poor. 95 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:14,000 Yes, that playground at St. Mary's is where a lonesome kid first stood at home plate determined to make good, to show the other fellows who he was. 96 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:20,000 At the age of 19, he walked through the gates of St. Mary's to try out for a professional baseball team. 97 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:25,000 They laughed at him at training camp. He was wearing his first suit of store-bought clothes. 98 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:31,000 He had never ridden on a Pullman train or stayed at a hotel or learned to eat without gulping to make sure he got his share. 99 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:39,000 But nobody laughed when he threw the ball with a slingshot arm or when they heard a sound like a rifle crack and saw the ball flying over the fielder's heads. 100 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:45,000 He was a Southpaw pitcher for Providence and then the Boston Red Sox, and he was a great pitcher, too. 101 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:49,000 In a recent conversation, one of his teammates, Wade Hoyt, said, 102 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:57,000 He was the one man, in my estimation, that could enter the Hall of Fame today on two counts. One is a pitcher and one is a great batter. 103 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:04,000 Yes, he was a great pitcher, but the crowd yelled to see him hit the ball, so he went to the outfield where he could play every day. 104 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:12,000 In 1919, he hit 29 home runs and was sold to the New York Yankees. Even then, he was more than a great baseball player. 105 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:16,000 There was a young fellow growing up in Chicago then who was a White Sox fan. 106 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:25,000 The English philosopher of the 19th century, Spencer, once lost a game of billiards. 107 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:30,000 He declared that to be a good billiard player is a sign of a misspent youth. 108 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:40,000 My misspent youth was in watching baseball games and in reading the baseball news and in poring over the box scores. 109 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:45,000 This is James T. Farrell, internationally famous novelist and critic and author of the Studs Lonagon trilogy. 110 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:51,000 Back in 1915, I was a boy in Chicago and my team was the Chicago White Sox. 111 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:57,000 After some years of drought, the White Sox had a team with pen and potentialities. 112 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:01,000 One of their main rivals was the Boston Red Sox. 113 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:06,000 The great star of the Red Sox was Chris Spiegel, the center fielder. 114 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:11,000 But there was a left-handed pitcher on the Red Sox called Babe Ruth. 115 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:22,000 In those days, no baseball fan, whether he were a boy or a man, believed that Babe Ruth would have the fantastic career 116 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:27,000 and become the savior of baseball as it happened that he did. 117 00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:33,000 I saw him pitch and beat the Cubs in the opening game of the World Series of 1918. 118 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:40,000 The year before, the White Sox had been world champions and my brother and I had gone down at 5 o'clock in the morning 119 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:41,000 to stand in line. 120 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:49,000 We did the same thing for the 1918 World Series played between the Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs. 121 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:53,000 In 1920, Babe Ruth played with the Yankees. 122 00:11:53,000 --> 00:12:01,000 The Yankees with Ruth and with their first of their murderer's row became a contender for the pennant. 123 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:08,000 The other members of the original murderer's row of the Yankees were Frank Baker, the third baseman, 124 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:16,000 Musel, the left fielder, Ping Bodie, the center fielder, and Wally Pipp, the first baseman, who was succeeded later by Lou Gehrig. 125 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:24,000 Ruth's sudden rise as a home run hitter was sensational and it was quite significant in the history of baseball. 126 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:29,000 I used to go under the stands after the games and watch the players. 127 00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:35,000 I usually watched the White Sox, but this time I also watched the Yankees to watch Ruth. 128 00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:38,000 Ruth was a big kid at the time. 129 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:45,000 He had a moon face, he was that day was wearing a blue suit and a gray check cap. 130 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:49,000 And I recall that about 200 boys crowded around him. 131 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:59,000 They did it in a way that they never did again around Ty Cobb or Joe Jackson or Chris Beaker or Eddie Collins or Walter Johnson or any of the stars of those days. 132 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:08,000 And Ruth, a very big man, a very powerful man, could scarcely move because of the boys and men, mostly boys, crowding around him. 133 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:17,000 And I remember how this procession with Ruth in the center went under the stands of Comiskey Park and out of the main entrance. 134 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:21,000 And Ruth sort of smiled. He was a little bit bewildered. 135 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:25,000 He was somewhat shy. He swayed and rolled with the crowd. 136 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:33,000 He was pushed this way. He was pushed that way. And he narrowly escaped being pushed into a big barrel of mustard. 137 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:44,000 Now I tell this story for the simple reason that it is quite indicative of what must have been the genuine simplicity and niceness about the man. 138 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:57,000 Of course, it was with the fabulous New York Yankees of the 1920s that Ruth won his greatest fame. 139 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:02,000 Perhaps it was destiny that he came along in that golden age of sports, a time of great champions. 140 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:10,000 There was a big red horse called Man O' War, Jack Dempsey in the ring, Bobby Jones on the fairways, and a galloping ghost named Red Grange on the gridiron. 141 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:16,000 But the clearest picture of them all is that of a huge hulk of a man delicately balanced at home plate. 142 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:21,000 There was the white flash of the ball, a graceful mighty swing, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, 143 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:28,000 and then the big fellow trotting deliberately with quick little steps around the bases, touching his cap and disappearing into the dugout. 144 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:32,000 Wade Hoyt was the boy wonder of the Yankee pitching staff in those days. 145 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:35,000 Now he's a veteran baseball announcer with the Cincinnati Red Legs. 146 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:42,000 I played with the Babe some 15 years, I should say 12 years with him and about 5 years against him. 147 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:49,000 And you knew immediately that when you stepped into the presence of Ruth that you were in the presence of some extraordinary figure. 148 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:53,000 He wasn't a particularly good looking fellow, but he had a sort of a fascination for everyone. 149 00:14:53,000 --> 00:15:01,000 I can remember back in 1933 that the New York Giants played the Washington Senators in the World Series. 150 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:06,000 And Babe was sent along as a sports reporter for the New York papers. 151 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:09,000 It was President Roosevelt's first term in office. 152 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:12,000 And they invited the sports writers around to the White House. 153 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:17,000 And when President Roosevelt met Babe, he greeted Babe very effusively and he said, 154 00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:19,000 Babe, he said it's wonderful to meet you again. 155 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:22,000 And Babe said, tickle of death to see you, Prez. 156 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:27,000 And Mr. Roosevelt, the president at the time, went on and told this story in great glee. 157 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:30,000 He says, you know, Babe, he said, this is not the first time our paths have crossed. 158 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:31,000 And Babe said, no, why? 159 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:34,000 He said, well, you see, Babe, it was back in 1920. 160 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,000 And I was running for the vice presidency of the United States. 161 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:41,000 And he said, we were a little weak in a precinct that we thought that we needed a major speech. 162 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:44,000 So he said, I took a private train and went to Binghamton, New York. 163 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:50,000 And he said, I arrived in Binghamton, New York early in the morning and there were some 15 to 20,000 people down there. 164 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:51,000 This was in October. 165 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:54,000 And he said, I was, oh, I was elated, Babe. 166 00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:59,000 He said, I was just overjoyed to think that all these people were down there to greet me at that station. 167 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:03,000 And he said, when I arrived at my hotel, Babe, you don't mind if I call you Babe, do you? 168 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:04,000 And Babe said, no, I don't care. 169 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:05,000 Go right ahead, President. 170 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:06,000 And the president continued. 171 00:16:06,000 --> 00:16:13,000 He said, Babe, he said, when I got to my hotel, I turned to my secretary and I said, don't you think it's remarkable the turnout we had this morning? 172 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:15,000 He said, I'm very much encouraged. 173 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,000 I'm very optimistic now that I've seen that huge turnout. 174 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:23,000 My secretary turned to me and he said to me, Mr. Roosevelt, I wouldn't be quite that optimistic if I were you. 175 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:29,000 He said that Babe Ruth, that great home run hitter, is going to play an exhibition game in town this afternoon. 176 00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:31,000 Most of those people were down there to see him. 177 00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:33,000 Don't you think that's funny, Babe? 178 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:35,000 He said, yeah, Prez, he says, that's a scream. 179 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:39,000 He said, but you know, Prez, he says, that happens all the time. 180 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:41,000 The Babe was tremendous. 181 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,000 The things that he did were just out of this world. 182 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:47,000 In Chicago one time, we were playing the Chicago White Sox. 183 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:51,000 And we had to catch a 730 train out of the south side of Chicago. 184 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:53,000 And the game ran into extra innings. 185 00:16:53,000 --> 00:16:59,000 And Mark Roth, the secretary of the Yankees at the time, he came down to the bench and he said to the Miller-Huggins hour manager, 186 00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:04,000 he said, gee whiz, Hug, he said, if we don't get this game over, we will never get that train out of the south side of Chicago. 187 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,000 And Babe was just picking up a bat to go up to the plate. 188 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:10,000 And he heard Mark say that and he said, I'll fix that for you. 189 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:17,000 He went up the first time at bat and he called for the 13th inning and hit the ball up on the roof of the right field pavilion out there in the White Sox Park. 190 00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:18,000 We caught the train. 191 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:19,000 We fellows who played with him. 192 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:21,000 We learned to love him. 193 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:22,000 Sometimes he became a little gruff. 194 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:32,000 Sometimes he became a little like, oh, you'd say a sort of a sort of a dog that you might love like a ne'er-deal big shaggy guy, you know, 195 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:35,000 and a fellow that could get a little off base once in a while. 196 00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:38,000 But nevertheless, you had to pat him on the back. 197 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,000 He had a heart as big as gold. 198 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:44,000 Here's the babe, here's the babe. 199 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:54,000 Here the frenzied people rave, send the fielders back against the farthest wall. 200 00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:59,000 Maybe Ruth's home run slugging was a part of the spirit of those roaring 20s. 201 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,000 Maybe it's a part of the spirit of our nation at Salwa. 202 00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:08,000 It may not be much of an accomplishment to hit more home runs than any other man, but we admired him for what he was. 203 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:12,000 A fellow who came out of nowhere and made his mark in the only way he knew. 204 00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:18,000 We paid him more than a million dollars for his skill, and we gave him even more than dollars for what he was. 205 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:25,000 A man like ourselves with all his faults and failings who yet became the very best in his own line of work. 206 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:30,000 Not everyone admired his fame, and there were many who didn't like his influence on baseball. 207 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:33,000 And yet we couldn't help liking the babe. 208 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:37,000 Ruth revealed that the home run was good box office. 209 00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:46,000 And coincidentally the rules of the game were changed, spitballs and trick delivery were outlawed to lessen the effectiveness of pitchers. 210 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:52,000 Fences were here and there moved in toward home plate to put them within range of more hitters. 211 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:58,000 The stolen base deteriorated as an effective tactic, terribly, unfortunately too. 212 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:04,000 Pitchers in order to cope with the increased scoring violated the balk rule and still continue to violate it. 213 00:19:04,000 --> 00:19:08,000 With umpires making almost no effort now to enforce it. 214 00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:13,000 Everybody in baseball was aware that the complexion of the game was shifting. 215 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:19,000 But few of us stopped to ponder how it affected the game's basic metabolism, if I might call it that. 216 00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:25,000 This is Branch Rickey, General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates and one of baseball's keenest observers and outstanding spokesmen. 217 00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:29,000 There was only one Ruth, really. 218 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:38,000 Two or three boys now in the National League are typical home run hitters and they have that kind of power. 219 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:42,000 And it's a great gate attraction. It's good. 220 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:46,000 Men with power should be home run hitters. I like home run hitters. 221 00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:51,000 I certainly do. The public likes to see home runs. 222 00:19:51,000 --> 00:20:05,000 And he contributed more in the change of the game itself from a base running game to a slugger game than any other factor during his time. 223 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:11,000 And that influence will last perhaps indefinitely. 224 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:18,000 But there is another phase to Ruth's contribution to baseball that certainly should be mentioned. 225 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:28,000 He has had probably more direct influence on the youth of this country than any other player during my time. 226 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:37,000 He has created an expectation of hero worship on the part of the youth of this country. 227 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:45,000 And it was a most fortunate thing that Ruth kept faith with the boyhood of America because they loved him. 228 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:58,000 He created a responsibility on the part of players today to keep faith with these boys by what they do and by what they say and by how they act off the field as well as on it. 229 00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:22,000 During a part of the 1920s when Babe Ruth and the Yankees were riding high, the St. Louis Browns, who usually managed to finish up near the bottom of the American League, strangely enough had the one pitcher in the league who had a peculiar knack of striking out the mighty Bambino. 230 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:33,000 He gave up baseball long ago to become a distinguished doctor in St. Louis, but in baseball circles he still remembered as, quote, the man who could strike out Ruth, unquote. 231 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:37,000 This is Dr. Hubert Pruitt, who used to answer to the name of Shucks. 232 00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:52,000 In retrospect, it seems almost unbelievable that in three years of frequent competition with an individual like the Babe that there would be no spoken word between us, not even hello or how are you. 233 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,000 But such was the case. 234 00:21:55,000 --> 00:22:00,000 We settled our differences face to face without conversation. 235 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:07,000 The bone of contention between us consisted of in which direction the baseball should travel. 236 00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:15,000 During the season of 1922, I all but convinced him that my opinion was going to prevail. 237 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:24,000 But late in September, a home run off me by him made me realize what a dogged, plugging nature he possessed. 238 00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:28,000 He wasn't a man of words, but one of action and deeds. 239 00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:38,000 It was years later, and only a few months before his passing, that we met officially and had the first exchange of words. 240 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:48,000 The occasion was a luncheon here in St. Louis, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, in the interest of boys in baseball. 241 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:53,000 I was asked to present, not introduce, the Babe to the gathering. 242 00:22:53,000 --> 00:23:00,000 I did this by presenting him as the man who financed my way through medical school. 243 00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:10,000 His reply to this was that it gave him great personal satisfaction to know that he had one medic's education to his credit, 244 00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:17,000 and that he hoped that in that audience of boys there would be others he could in some manner help. 245 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:25,000 When he missed, what a miss, all the air around him missed. 246 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:32,000 When he hit the ball, there was no ball at all. 247 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:39,000 Maybe one reason we liked Babe Ruth is that although he hit more home runs than anyone else, he also struck out more often. 248 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:42,000 That was a total of 1,330 times. 249 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:45,000 He went all out for the fences and took his chances. 250 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:47,000 I guess we like it that way. 251 00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:53,000 When he fanned, he was the most struck out man in baseball, but we knew he wasn't up there to keep that bat on his shoulder. 252 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:57,000 It's hard to recall now just how much excitement the Babe used to stir up. 253 00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:05,000 They talked about him in country stores, read about him in small towns, and really raved about him in this biggest of all small towns, New York. 254 00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,000 They still talk about him wherever sports fans gather. 255 00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:12,000 For instance, at the Lambs Club, a meeting place for people in show business, 256 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:17,000 one of the fellows in every baseball conversation is the popular entertainer, Senator Ford. 257 00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:21,000 You know, the Babe was a big kid who loved little kids. 258 00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:25,000 Nothing was too much for him where the lollipop set was concerned. 259 00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:34,000 One day he was beginning to get dressed to go out on the field for morning practice when he heard that a 12-year-old boy was dying in a New York hospital. 260 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,000 The Babe was the kid's idol. 261 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:41,000 One ball player suggested that perhaps an autographed ball might help the kid's morale. 262 00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:45,000 Ruth thought a while and then decided he could do better than that. 263 00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:50,000 So he yanked his camel's hair cap out of his locker and taxied over to the hospital. 264 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:56,000 The sick boy's eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw his guard walk in and sit on the bed. 265 00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:00,000 The Babe said, Hi, kid. You know what I'm going to do? 266 00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:05,000 This afternoon I'm going to hit a home run just for you. It's going to be your home run. 267 00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:10,000 Now you hurry up and get well so I can take you out to the ballpark and see me play. 268 00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:16,000 Now I don't know if Ruth called his home run shot in the 32 series, but I do know that he called this one. 269 00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:19,000 He hit a home run that afternoon as he promised. 270 00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,000 What's more important, the kid got well. 271 00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,000 In that case, Ruth was more of a doctor than the doctors were. 272 00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:31,000 It was things like that that explain why Ruth was the most popular figure in the game. 273 00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:39,000 There have been a number of guys in baseball who could cloud a ball a country mile, but the boys who should know will tell you that nobody hit a ball harder than Ruth. 274 00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:47,000 I can recall back around 1927 when the Babe hit a ball that scared everybody in the ballpark except pitcher Hod Lisenby. 275 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:53,000 Hod wasn't scared. He was beyond that sensation. That guy was numb. 276 00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:58,000 You see, Lisenby was pitching for Washington when Ruth stepped up to the plate. 277 00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:02,000 Hod fired, the Babe swung, and the ball rifled back at Lisenby. 278 00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:09,000 It shot between his legs and without touching the ground it rose and sailed over center field at Triss Beaker's Gray Noggin. 279 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,000 Lisenby was stunned without being hit. 280 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:17,000 The blood drained from his pan and he froze. For a minute he looked like an unveiled statue. 281 00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:20,000 Yeah, the Babe sure could whack him. 282 00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:25,000 Ruth's integrity and his big bat saved baseball in its gloomiest hour. 283 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:30,000 Back in 1919, an economy-sized scandal reared its ugly head. 284 00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:36,000 You know, that was the year that some of the white socks turned black and threw the series. 285 00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:41,000 Baseball looked like a stretcher case at that time, but along came Ruth with his black pet-see, 286 00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,000 and the patient began to sit up and take nourishment. 287 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:49,000 Nourishment in the form of stitched white pills being socked into the seats by the Babe. 288 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:53,000 Under Ruth's treatment, the game got well and has been in good health ever since. 289 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:57,000 The Babe not only saved the game, he changed it. 290 00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,000 And Ruth's fame wasn't restricted to this country either. 291 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,000 He was an international figure. 292 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:08,000 Here's a little story that will give you an inkling of the magnitude of his importance. 293 00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,000 An Englishwoman came to the United States and became a citizen. 294 00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:16,000 One day a friend took her to the stadium to see the Yanks play. 295 00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:21,000 In the second inning, the mighty Babe lashed one into the furniture in right field. 296 00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,000 The Englishwoman turned to her friend and said, 297 00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:29,000 I've had my citizenship papers for some time, but up to now I never considered myself a full-fledged American. 298 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:35,000 Somehow I felt that I would never be a real American until I saw Babe Ruth hit a home run. 299 00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:42,000 Yeah, he was quite a man, this big kid, and I doubt that any of us will ever live long enough to see another Babe Ruth. 300 00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:46,000 They threw the mold away when they hung up that uniform with the big three on it. 301 00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:54,000 But as Washington and Lincoln still live in the White House, so Babe Ruth will always be in the Yankee Stadium. 302 00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:59,000 Biographies and sound will continue after a brief pause for station identification. 303 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:05,000 You're listening to Same Time, Same Station, the best of old-time radio. 304 00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:09,000 And I'm your host, Jerry Hindigis. 305 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:23,000 Come and listen to a tale I will tell Of a hero we all love so well 306 00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:38,000 He played ball, what a hitter, what a man And he'll never be forgotten in our land 307 00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:53,000 This is a biography and sound presented by the National Broadcasting Company with narration by Mel Allen and with music by Tom Glaser. 308 00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:58,000 The Babe was too much like the rest of us for sudden wealth and fame to leave him untouched. 309 00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:02,000 This was a kid who never had enough to eat, so it's not strange that he ate too much. 310 00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:07,000 Just as he went all out on the baseball field, he went all out in everything he did. 311 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:12,000 This was a big man with a big appetite for food, for fun, for living. 312 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:17,000 I know the Babe as a fan, as a good customer, and as a friend. 313 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:23,000 This is the voice of a man who has been a familiar figure at almost every sporting event for many, many years. 314 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:29,000 The firm of Harry M. Stevens is the official caterer at four Major League Baseball parks and many racetracks. 315 00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:34,000 And here is Frank Stevens, president of the firm who helped to make the hot dog a national institution. 316 00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:49,000 He had a big appetite, and I remember the time before an important ball game at the Yankee Stadium, Mr. Barrow, then the general manager, was having pig's knuckles for his luncheon. 317 00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,000 The Babe said that he wanted some also. 318 00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,000 And we said before the game starts, and he says right now. 319 00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:02,000 So he ate three, and then went out and hit two home runs. 320 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,000 And he also did a lot for the Frankfurter. 321 00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:10,000 He not alone liked to eat them, but he liked to eat them in volume. 322 00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:17,000 And many a time that he would have a full-size luncheon and eat a half a dozen Frankfurters for dessert. 323 00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:23,000 He liked to play golf. He liked to go bowling, and he loved to hunt. 324 00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:41,000 I remember when we used to go down to North Carolina after the baseball season closed with Damon Runyon, Bill McBeth, Bud Fisher, Bill McGahan, Grantlin Rice, and John Caron. 325 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,000 The Babe was a glutton for hunting. 326 00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:48,000 Perhaps someday if he thought he was going to miss a duck hunt, he'd stay up all night. 327 00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:52,000 In a lot of ways, he was like a little boy at a circus. 328 00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,000 He just couldn't see and do enough. 329 00:30:55,000 --> 00:31:10,000 More than that, he was a wonderful fellow around camp, a fine companion, and everybody loved him around the country. 330 00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:16,000 You know, after eating the way the Babe had eaten as a boy, it was great to be able to order anything you wanted on the menu. 331 00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,000 And his favorite was a huge steak with a few lamb chops for trimming. 332 00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:23,000 Oftentimes, he gulped hot dogs and soda pop. 333 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,000 After hours, he gulped whatever was handy. 334 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,000 This was a kid who had been looked down on and laughed at. 335 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,000 And remembering that, he showed off a little. 336 00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,000 He was fined and suspended for breaking training rules. 337 00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,000 He quarreled with an umpire and threw a punch. 338 00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:40,000 He went into the stands with a baseball bat after a fan who had called him names. 339 00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:44,000 He forgot the interest of the teammates who helped him make him great. 340 00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:51,000 This kid who had never had a dollar flashed his roll like a tin horn sport and threw his money away like a drunken sailor on a never-ending spree. 341 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:56,000 He drove his big car fast as if he were beyond such things as traffic laws. 342 00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:00,000 There's no need to take lightly or gloss over the mistakes he made. 343 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,000 Even those who loved to cheer him were forced to grumble. 344 00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,000 He hardly seemed to understand. 345 00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:10,000 For when you've had too little for so long, you're apt to take too much. 346 00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,000 One night at a baseball writers' dinner where he was being honored for his feats at bat, 347 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:18,000 a man who didn't pretend to be perfect himself turned to him. 348 00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,000 It was Jimmy Walker, a kid from the sidewalks of New York. 349 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,000 He knew how easy it is to make mistakes. 350 00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:29,000 Now, this is not his voice nor his exact speech, but this is about what he said. 351 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:34,000 Look, babe, they asked you here to honor you, and in my book they should. 352 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:36,000 But these aren't the guys you're most important to. 353 00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:40,000 Although they write your name and every paper from here to West Vancouver, 354 00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:45,000 the guys who mean the most to you, the guys who care about you most, are the kids on the street, 355 00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,000 the kids with dirty faces who've never had a chance. 356 00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,000 They look up to you. 357 00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:53,000 And once you were one of them, and your success is theirs. 358 00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,000 Sports writers can find another hero, but these kids can't. 359 00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:00,000 These kids believe in you, and they think that anything you do is right. 360 00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:01,000 You don't owe us anything. 361 00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,000 We're baseball fans, and we go to see you play because we like the game, 362 00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,000 and we know that you're the best. We're not denying that. 363 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:10,000 But you owe them something, the kids with eager hearts and dirty faces, 364 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:14,000 because they think you are somebody, not just a home-run hitter. 365 00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:23,000 Mmm. 366 00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,000 They wondered why Jimmy Walker bothered with such a speech. 367 00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:29,000 After all, he was a quick fellow with a wisecrank. 368 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:33,000 He could have gotten a few laughs, with jokes about the babes' troubles. 369 00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:35,000 And the babe could have laughed it off, too. 370 00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:38,000 The babe didn't have to take talk like that, even from Jimmy Walker, 371 00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,000 the mayor of New York. 372 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:44,000 But the babe understood, and he was never in trouble after that. 373 00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,000 He was fooling sometimes, but never wrong at heart. 374 00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,000 We make jokes about the famous stomach ache that was heard around the world. 375 00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,000 It was written about as if it were an eruption of Vesuvius. 376 00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:58,000 But the fact is that the babe was truly ill and fighting for his life. 377 00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,000 The kids hung around St. Vincent's Hospital night and day 378 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,000 until they knew the babe was well. 379 00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,000 And that told him even more than Jimmy Walker had about who he was 380 00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,000 and what he meant to us. 381 00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,000 After that, you didn't need to worry anymore about the babe, 382 00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,000 because he had found his friends, the kids of America. 383 00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:18,000 Here's one of them who knew the babe better than most of us. 384 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:22,000 I was fortunate enough to be one of his pet clubhouse people. 385 00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,000 I was a little fellow of about six years old in short pants, 386 00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:29,000 and the babe used to carry me around the dressing room on his shoulders. 387 00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,000 And if he hit a home run that day, he would give me a baseball. 388 00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,000 Of course, it wasn't the one he had hit, 389 00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,000 because that was somewhere in the far reaches of the house that Ruth built, 390 00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:39,000 Yankee Stadium. 391 00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:40,000 But he would give me a ball. 392 00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,000 And sometimes, if he struck out two or three times, 393 00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:44,000 he'd still give me a ball saying, 394 00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,000 kid, you bring me luck. 395 00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:49,000 This is the son of a famous former sports editor of the New York Times, 396 00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,000 John Kieran, Jr. 397 00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:55,000 In 1926, the year before the poem which I will read to you was written, 398 00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:57,000 the babe had a bad year, 399 00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:00,000 and it started off with what is called the famous stomach ache in baseball 400 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,000 when the babe had overindulged himself on a training trip. 401 00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:08,000 He'd eaten too much, and a few of his other habits had gotten the best of him, 402 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:10,000 and he was out of action for a long time. 403 00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,000 The babe had a bad season, for the babe, that is, 404 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:18,000 and lots of his critics began to indicate that the big fella might be over the hill. 405 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:22,000 My father didn't believe this, and he wrote copy to that effect. 406 00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:26,000 At the end of the year 1927, my father was proven right, 407 00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:29,000 and in justification he wrote this poem. 408 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,000 It starts with the words, A Query. 409 00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:37,000 You may sing your song of the good old days, till the phantom cows come home. 410 00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:41,000 You may dig up glorious deeds of yore, from many a dusty tome. 411 00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:45,000 You may rise to tell of Rue Baudel and the way he buzzed them through, 412 00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:50,000 and top it all with the great fastball that Roussey's routers knew. 413 00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:54,000 You may rant of brothers Keefe and Ward and half a dozen more. 414 00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:58,000 You may quote by rote from the record book in a way that I deplore. 415 00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:03,000 You may rave, I say, till the break of day, but the truth remains the truth. 416 00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:08,000 From one old cat to the last at bat, was there ever a guy like Routh? 417 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:12,000 He can start and go, he can catch and throw, he can field with the very best. 418 00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:17,000 He's the prince of ash and the king of crash, and that's not an idle jest. 419 00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:21,000 He can hit the ball or the garden wall high up and far away, 420 00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:25,000 beyond the aftermost picket lines where the fleet foot-fielders stray. 421 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:29,000 He's the bogeyman of the pitching clan, and he clubs them soon and late. 422 00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:33,000 He had manned his guns and hit home runs from here to the Golden Gate. 423 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:37,000 With them in verve he has walloped the curve from Texas to Duluth, 424 00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:42,000 which is no small task, and I beg to ask, was there ever a guy like Routh? 425 00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:49,000 And in conclusion, you may rise and sing till the rafters ring that sad and sorrowful strain. 426 00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:53,000 They strive and fail, it's the old, old hail, they never come back again. 427 00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:58,000 Yes, it's in the dope, when they hit the slope, they're off for the shadowed vale. 428 00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:03,000 But the great big bam with the circuit slam came back on the uphill trail, 429 00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:07,000 came back with cheers from the drifted years where the best of them go down, 430 00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:12,000 came back once more with a record score to wear a brighter crown. 431 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,000 My voice may be loud above the crowd, and my words just a bit uncouth, 432 00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:22,000 but I'll stand and shout till the last man's out, there was never a guy like Routh. 433 00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:37,000 Sixty times in the year of twenty-seven, sixty baseballs went sailing up to heaven. 434 00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:52,000 Sixty home runs the babes smacked, and I'll bet that those sixty baseballs all are sailing yet. 435 00:37:52,000 --> 00:38:00,000 Here's the babe, here's the babe, hear the frenzied people rave, 436 00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:07,000 send the fielders back against the farthest wall. 437 00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:14,000 When he missed, what a miss, all the air around him hissed. 438 00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:23,000 When he hit the ball, there was no ball at all. 439 00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,000 Those were the glory days for Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees. 440 00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:30,000 Crowds in the thousands packed the stadium to see teammates like Lou Gehry, 441 00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:35,000 Girl Combs, Bob Musial, Tony Lazari, Joe Dugan, Wade Hoyt, George Pipgrass, and Herb Pennock, 442 00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:38,000 and most of all the big fellow himself. 443 00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:43,000 Babe Ruth had his picture printed more often and had more words written about him than any other athlete. 444 00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,000 But we began to see a different picture in the papers. 445 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:51,000 Not a picture of the bambino at the end of a giant swing watching the ball sail off another homer. 446 00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:58,000 No, a picture of the babe with a big smile on his face sitting at the bedside of some hard luck kid in the hospital, 447 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:03,000 or with a gang of youngsters gathered around him at a school, a home, or an orphanage. 448 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,000 Yes, he'd come a long way from the back streets and alleys of Baltimore, 449 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:10,000 but now he remembered where he'd come from. 450 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,000 One of the men who traveled with him was Tom Meaney, a newspaper sports reporter, 451 00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:17,000 and now sports writer for Collier's Magazine. 452 00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:25,000 Now I'd like to say one thing about Babe which always upset me was that Babe ended in baseball, 453 00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:29,000 a rather embittered man, and it was only his last illness. 454 00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:33,000 When Babe was sick and his kids crowded around the French Polyclinic Hospital, 455 00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:38,000 it was only in those days that Babe realized the hold he had on the public, 456 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:42,000 and his last 18 months, the last year of his life, 457 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:48,000 he was a much happier man than he'd been in the 12, 13 years that he'd been out of baseball. 458 00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:55,000 Now Babe, his last official major league engagement was with the Brooklyn Dodgers as a coach, 459 00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,000 and Babe volunteered, nobody asked him to, Babe volunteered to play first base 460 00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:04,000 in the three or four exhibition games the Dodgers had scheduled that year during the regular season, 461 00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:08,000 and Babe's sight was failing then, and the lights in the minor league ball parks were poor, 462 00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,000 much poorer than they are today, 463 00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:14,000 and the guy McFaylor was the president of the Dodgers was very fearful that one of these wild young pitchers 464 00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:18,000 might hit Babe, well it's remarkable, although his eyesight was failing, 465 00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,000 he had to wear glasses to read at that time, 466 00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,000 he was never hit with a pitch ball and he made only one hit, innocent, 467 00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:27,000 these four or five exhibition games he played, he hit a home run in Albany, 468 00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:30,000 and it was the longest home run ever hit in the Albany ballpark. 469 00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:42,000 Yes, after 20 seasons, age caught up even with the great Bambino, 470 00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:45,000 in 1934 he left the stadium he had helped to build, 471 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:49,000 he played a few games for the Boston Braves in 1935, 472 00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:53,000 was a coach and an exhibition attraction for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1938, 473 00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:59,000 and then it was all over, there was no place in baseball for the game's greatest hero. 474 00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:03,000 When the Babe hung up his spikes, we all felt a little older, 475 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:08,000 for he was a part of our youth, a part of the golden time when all of us were younger, 476 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:13,000 after that we saw him less and less, but the game always stopped for a moment, 477 00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:17,000 when the big fellow with a cap pulled over his eyes appeared in the stands, 478 00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:21,000 the legend lived on and so did the Babe, 479 00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:25,000 Ben Grower remembers that he was still a hero to youngsters who never saw him play. 480 00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:30,000 Well, getting a close-up of the Babe occurred in a radio show called Here's Babe Ruth, 481 00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:33,000 which I did in NBC in 1943 and 44, 482 00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,000 it was a sports show for the kids on Saturday afternoon, 483 00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:40,000 sponsored very fittingly by the Spalding people. 484 00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:44,000 On the program the Babe answered baseball questions which were fired at him by youngsters, 485 00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:47,000 whom I brought out of the audience and introduced to him, 486 00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:52,000 the Babe would talk briefly with the youngster, ask him what his ambition was or who his favorite player was, 487 00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,000 answer any baseball questions that the youngster posed, 488 00:41:55,000 --> 00:41:58,000 and then award an autographed baseball for appearing on the program. 489 00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:02,000 The kids were about eight or ten years old, sometimes maybe twelve, 490 00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,000 and surely the Babe had stopped playing ball some ten years before 491 00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:09,000 and none of them had ever seen the Babe actually in front of the plate performing as a baseball star, 492 00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:14,000 they'd only heard about him, but to them he literally was a legend come to life, 493 00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:20,000 just perhaps as it would feel to us to actually see and talk face to face with John L. Sullivan or Diamond Jim Brady, 494 00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:23,000 that's the way the Babe was to the kids. 495 00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:28,000 They were just nice kids who were crazy about baseball, and baseball to him was a way of life, 496 00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:32,000 it was the thing he understood best above anything else in the world. 497 00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:36,000 The Babe was quite simple and elemental in his tastes and point of view. 498 00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:40,000 He didn't relish philosophy or deep talk about the meaning or rhythm of the game, 499 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,000 but he had a thorough understanding of every baseball situation, 500 00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:50,000 of the rules and strategy and the remarkable recollection of players and personalities and their records. 501 00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,000 Besides the questions which the youngsters would fire at him, 502 00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:55,000 he'd introduce familiar baseball figures of those days, 503 00:42:55,000 --> 00:43:00,000 some of the greats of baseball, Billy Southworth, Lou Boudreau, Mel Ott, 504 00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:04,000 and a lad from the Dodgers, I recall, named Leo DeRosha. 505 00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:09,000 Well, the broadcast went easily enough, but I could tell they were sort of a strain on the Babe. 506 00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:14,000 He was a star on the baseball diamond, but anywhere else exposed to public gaze 507 00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:18,000 was a performance to him and one in which he felt vaguely uncomfortable. 508 00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:23,000 So after the broadcast, we'd go down to the neighboring coffee shop so that the Babe could relax. 509 00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:28,000 He'd order a tall glass of cool beer to ease his nerves and his throat. 510 00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:32,000 His voice, as I recall, was rather hoarse and scratchy at that time, 511 00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:36,000 maybe already his throat was giving him serious trouble. 512 00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:40,000 This sort of simple conviviality, a bunch of the boys sitting around a table 513 00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:43,000 and stretching our legs under it and just gassing, 514 00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:47,000 that was very much a part of the Babe's personality and character. 515 00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:52,000 Every generation has a personality that emerges, luminous and complete within itself. 516 00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:57,000 By just the mention of the name, you recall the whole sense and feeling of the person and his period. 517 00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:02,000 In our generation, you can just say, Touloula or Bing, and you've got it. 518 00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,000 Somehow, in the sports world of yesterday, there was only one, 519 00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:07,000 the Babe. 520 00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:38,000 Here's a recollection of those days by Ed Byron. 521 00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:40,000 Yes, I saw Babe Ruth once. 522 00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:43,000 This was back in the spring of 1944. 523 00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,000 I was still in the Army then. 524 00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:51,000 And after I'd come back from overseas, I was put in charge of what you might call a traveling hospital show. 525 00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,000 It was called Visiting Hour. 526 00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:57,000 And we used to go all over the country and bring stars and a band 527 00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:02,000 and such entertainment as we could get voluntarily to the wounded veterans. 528 00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:06,000 At that particular time, we happened to be in Indianapolis. 529 00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:11,000 Aside from the usual coterie of stars who would come to give autographs 530 00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:16,000 and to sing songs for the soldiers, there was a man named Babe Ruth. 531 00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,000 Now, I'd never even seen Babe Ruth play ball. 532 00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:23,000 But I was aware of the legend. I was aware of the impact of it. 533 00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:28,000 It didn't really mean much to me, except I did notice a few things. 534 00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,000 The Babe wasn't too good on the formal part of the show. 535 00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:33,000 He seemed ill at ease. 536 00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,000 And as soon as the show was over, he disappeared. 537 00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:40,000 It wasn't for some time later that I found out where he'd gone. 538 00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:44,000 And he'd gone through the wards all by himself. 539 00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:49,000 Well, after the show was over and that evening, we were gathered in this hotel. 540 00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:54,000 Sort of to cut up the show and to have a few drinks and a few laughs, tell a few stories. 541 00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:56,000 No Babe Ruth. 542 00:45:56,000 --> 00:46:01,000 I wondered about that because I had heard that he was a gregarious fellow and liked to drink, 543 00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,000 liked to talk, liked to be with people. 544 00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:08,000 He wasn't there. So I made inquiry. 545 00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:11,000 I found out what room he was staying in and I went around to see it. 546 00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:15,000 This must have been about at past 10 at night. 547 00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:20,000 I knocked on the door and a voice said, come in. 548 00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:25,000 And there was the Babe, sitting all alone in front of an open window, looking out at the lights. 549 00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,000 And we got into conversation. 550 00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,000 Wasn't an important conversation. 551 00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:32,000 Nothing startling was said. 552 00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,000 But there he was all alone. 553 00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:37,000 He had done his job, thought nothing of it. 554 00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:42,000 And he sat there all night long because as he told me, he wasn't sleeping well those days. 555 00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:45,000 And he used to like to sit and think. 556 00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:55,000 And that's about all I know about Babe Ruth. 557 00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,000 We began to hear stories that the Babe was seriously ill. 558 00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:05,000 We read of his visits to clinics and hospitals, not to cheer up others as he always did, but for himself. 559 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:10,000 But he appeared again at Yankee Stadium on Lou Gehrig Day when we honored the pride of the Yankees, 560 00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:15,000 a gallant figure whose career and life itself was being ended by a tragic illness. 561 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:23,000 Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. 562 00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:28,000 It was the Babe who cried first of all, his arm around his old teammate's shoulder, 563 00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:38,000 as Lou Gehrig spoke not of his misfortune, but of his friends. 564 00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:42,000 The Babe may have been a bitter man as the cheers of the crowds faded away, 565 00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:48,000 but this man without any background, without any great talents off the diamond, found a place for himself. 566 00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:52,000 During the last four years of his life, I probably knew him as well as anybody. 567 00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:56,000 Throughout these years, when I know the pain was very great, he traveled over the country 568 00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:59,000 as a commissioner of the Junior American Legion Baseball League. 569 00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:04,000 Many times when he was very sick, he made the effort and appeared before the public, 570 00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:06,000 particularly where kids were concerned. 571 00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:10,000 This is a New York businessman, Paul Carey, president of the Carey Cadillac Company, 572 00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:15,000 treasurer of the Babe Ruth Foundation and director of the Babe Ruth Baseball League. 573 00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:22,000 One particular thing that is very vivid to me is an experience we had in Carl Gables, Florida, in March of 1948. 574 00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:25,000 It was only about five months before he died. 575 00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:29,000 He was asked to referee a golf match for the Damon Rundin Cancer Fund, 576 00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:33,000 and although it was a great effort on his part to do so, we went to the golf course. 577 00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:39,000 The match was between Babe Seharius and Sammy Byrd, a former ball player and colleague of the Babe. 578 00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:45,000 While walking down the fourth fairway, a newspaper man approached me and asked if Babe would go and visit Colin Kane, 579 00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:50,000 who was blind and a former public relations director for the National League. 580 00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:54,000 Without telling Babe who it was, I asked him if he felt up to doing this. 581 00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,000 I knew that he was greatly fatigued, but without any hesitation he said, 582 00:48:57,000 --> 00:48:59,000 Of course I will. Where does he live? 583 00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:03,000 When we rang the doorbell when Mrs. Kane opened the door and recognized Babe, 584 00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:07,000 she called to Colin and said there was somebody there to see him. 585 00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,000 And as he appeared, Babe said, Colin, how are you? 586 00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:15,000 And Colin replied, Babe Ruth, you are like a lighted candle coming into a blind man's house. 587 00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:18,000 It's great to be with you. Come on in. 588 00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:22,000 We sat in the living room and the perspiration poured from the Babe. 589 00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:27,000 I knew he was really suffering, but he spent a good fifteen or twenty minutes talking over all times with Colin 590 00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:32,000 and from the enthusiastic replies of Colin I am sure he could see again. 591 00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:36,000 After our departure the Babe sat in the car with his head buried in his hand, 592 00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:40,000 and I could see that he was greatly touched because his eyes were moist. 593 00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:44,000 He died one minute after raid on Monday evening August the 16th, 1948, 594 00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:48,000 and today there is a living monument to his memory in the Babe Ruth Baseball League, 595 00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:54,000 which is organized throughout the country for kids between the ages of 13 through 15 years. 596 00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:58,000 I have a deep feeling that the Babe is up there somewhere looking down on these youngsters 597 00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:01,000 and saying come on kids and rooting them on. 598 00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:12,000 In April 1947, once again the Babe stood at home plate in Yankee Stadium. 599 00:50:12,000 --> 00:50:19,000 This time it was Babe Ruth Day, and now he stood in the mighty stadium built for him 600 00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:26,000 as 60,000 people cheered, and that cheer echoed the thunder that shook the stands so many times so long ago. 601 00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,000 Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. 602 00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:35,000 You know how bad my voice sounds when it feels just as bad. 603 00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:41,000 You know this baseball game of ours comes up from the youth. 604 00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,000 Babe Ruth, dying, was saying his last goodbyes. 605 00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:50,000 If you were a boy and grew up to know how to play ball, 606 00:50:50,000 --> 00:51:01,000 then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in your national pastime. 607 00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:07,000 The only real game I think in the world, baseball. 608 00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:19,000 There's been so many lovely things said about me and I'm glad that I've had the opportunity to thank everybody. 609 00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,000 Thank you. 610 00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:28,000 It was spring again that day, spring again 45 years after he had stood at home plate on the rocky playground at St. Mary's. 611 00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:36,000 He had learned a lot, and he made this Babe Ruth Day an event not for himself, but for the kids of America. 612 00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:51,000 In the years, in the baseball years to come, when the fans gather at the stadiums, 613 00:51:51,000 --> 00:52:07,000 when the bags are full and the count is three and two, the Babe Big Bat will always pull the Yankees through. 614 00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:15,000 That day marked the beginning of the Babe Ruth Foundation, a fund to give a better chance to kids who have had too little. 615 00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:22,000 After that, the Babe spent all the time and strength he had left in giving back all that had been given to him. 616 00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:27,000 And when the Babe died on August 16, 1948, just seven years ago tonight, 617 00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:32,000 Tom Glazer wrote a ballad, a sort of a folk song in his memory. 618 00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:36,000 I guess that's the way the Babe should be remembered, very simply. 619 00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:41,000 A sports hero isn't very important really, and yet we do have a sort of pride in Babe Ruth. 620 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:46,000 Maybe it's the pride we have in ourselves that we gave him a chance to make his mark in his own way. 621 00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:51,000 Maybe it's the pride we have in a country that didn't ask him who he was or where he came from, 622 00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:54,000 but only what he could do and could he do it well. 623 00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:58,000 So let him join the heroes who are partly real, partly legend, 624 00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:04,000 fellows like Daniel Boone and David Crockett, John Henry and Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed and all the rest. 625 00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:08,000 In his own way, he helped to prove a part of our tradition, 626 00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:12,000 that every kid should have his chance to play, his chance to grow into a man, 627 00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:19,000 each with his own opportunity, regardless of birth, to become whatever his abilities, great or small, can make of him. 628 00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:25,000 That's the legend of America, the legend of which Babe Ruth is now a part. 629 00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:33,000 Here's the Babe, here's the Babe, hear the frenzied people rave. 630 00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:40,000 He made our hearts beat faster than the band. 631 00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:50,000 Gone the cheers, gone the thrill, and his booming bat is still. 632 00:53:50,000 --> 00:54:04,000 But he'll never be forgotten through the land.