Babe & Me

by Dan Gutman

  “Stop him!” somebody yelled.

  Three of the guys grabbed Dad, and they started dragging him away.

  “Governor Roosevelt!” Dad screamed. “Hitler is going to kill millions of people! You’ve got to stop him!”

  I wasn’t sure if Roosevelt heard Dad or not. His voice was muffled because one of the men had put his hand over Dad’s mouth.

  “Stop!” I yelled. “Leave him alone!” I began to follow them to see where they were taking my dad.

  “Don’t, Butch!” Dad hollered to me. “Stay here! See if he calls the shot! I’ll find you later! I promise!”

  I stopped and watched, like the rest of the crowd, as Dad was handcuffed and forcibly escorted away. There was nothing else I could do.

  Governor Roosevelt stood up and threw out the ceremonial first pitch. I made my way back to my seat near the Yankee dugout and sat down to watch the game.

  In a few minutes everything had quieted down, and the fans turned their attention back to the field. A band was marching across the field. Governor Roosevelt stood up and threw out the ceremonial first pitch. I made my way back to my seat near the Yankee dugout and sat down to watch the game.

  I would be able to see if Babe Ruth called his shot, but I didn’t know if I would ever see my dad again.

  15

  Game Three

  WRIGLEY FIELD WAS JAMMED. LOOKING AROUND, I couldn’t see an empty seat in the house. That is, except for the seat next to mine. That’s where Dad would have been sitting if he hadn’t been dragged away by Governor Roosevelt’s security guards.

  I didn’t know where my dad was, what was being done to him, or how we were going to find each other again. I tried to put it out of my mind until the game was over. He promised he would find me later. That was all I had to go on.

  An enormous American flag was carried out on the field. It was so large, it couldn’t go up any flagpole. Instead, the Cubs and Yankees came out on the infield and held it horizontally. Each player stood about ten feet from the player next to him, being careful not to let the flag touch the ground. Babe was up near the top left corner with the stars. The flag covered almost the entire infield, like the tarp they use to keep the field dry when it rains.

  The crowd was quiet while the marching band played the national anthem. But by the time the umpire announced “Play ball!” the whole crowd was on its feet, roaring. I had to hand it to those Cubs fans—they don’t give up. Their team was down two games to none, but it didn’t sound like a man, woman, or child in the place had any doubts that their boys would come back.

  I knew better. The Cubs were dead. They were going to lose today and lose again tomorrow, and the World Series would be over. The only thing I didn’t know was whether or not Babe would call his shot. In five innings, though, I would find that out, too.

  As the players dashed back into the dugouts, Babe ran past where I was sitting. I waved to him and somehow, in the middle of all those faces calling to him, he noticed mine.

  “Hiya, kid!” he yelled to me. “Where’s your dad?”

  “He…had to run an errand,” I said.

  “A kid your age shouldn’t be all by himself. Why don’t you come down here and sit with me?”

  “Sure!”

  The fans around me looked on with awe as I climbed down to the front row and hopped over the rail onto the field. Babe led me into the Yankee dugout.

  This was a dream come true. Not only would I see Babe’s called shot, but I was going see it from the best seat in the house! I looked down the Yankee bench. There were Lazzeri, Crosetti, Dickey, Gehrig, and all the others. They were spitting sunflower seeds, pounding their hands into their gloves, giving each other pep talks. It felt like I was in a movie, but I was actually sitting there watching them.

  My reverie was interrupted when manager Joe McCarthy stomped over to Babe.

  “That kid can’t stay in the dugout!” McCarthy thundered, adding a few curse words wherever he could fit one in.

  “Oh, yeah?” Babe said calmly. “If the kid can’t stay in the dugout, then I’m not stayin’ in the dugout, either.”

  Babe picked up his glove, got up, and went to open the door in the back of the dugout that must have led to the Yankee locker room.

  “Sit down, you ugly tub of guts,” McCarthy said. “You better wise up!”

  When McCarthy stalked away, Babe snickered like a mischievous kid who’d just hit his teacher with a spitball. He helped me into the dugout.

  “That guy cramps my style,” he giggled.

  Babe looked around the field and pointed to the flag in centerfield. “The wind’s blowin’ out to the right,” he said. “If Gehrig and me get the ball up in the air today, we’re gonna hit some out of here.”

  If he only knew what I knew.

  The Cubs ran out to take the field for the first inning. The pitcher, warming up on the side, was a tall right-hander who wore number 12 on the back of his uniform. The public-address announcer introduced him as Charlie Root.

  The Cub pitcher was a tall right-hander who wore number 12 on the back of his uniform.

  I had seen plenty of games on TV, but I’d never seen a major-league pitcher in person. On TV, a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball never looked that fast to me. It looked like maybe I could even hit it if I got a good swing. But from the Yankee dugout, it looked like Root was firing the ball from a gun. I could barely see the ball. And Root was just warming up.

  “He ain’t got nothin’,” Babe said, punctuating the remark with a yawn.

  The crowd got louder when Root finished his warm-up pitches. Earle Combs, the first Yankee batter, stepped up to the plate. Joe Sewell went out to the on-deck circle. The fans began yelling and stomping their feet against the bleachers. The noise level grew to a roar as Charlie Root looked in for his sign and let fly the first pitch of the game.

  “Steeeeeerike!” the umpire hollered as the ball exploded into the catcher’s mitt. Game Three was under way. I looked around, just to see if Dad might be on his way back. He wasn’t.

  Combs looked over a few of Root’s pitches, then saw one he liked and smacked a routine grounder toward short. It looked like an easy out, and the fans started clapping.

  But the Cub shortstop, Billy Jurges, must have had the jitters. He scooped up the grounder and threw it way over first base.

  “Watch out!” Babe hollered. Almost too late, I saw the ball heading right at me in the Yankee dugout. I dove out of the way and it just missed me. When I got up off the floor, Babe and the Yankees were laughing their heads off.

  “Welcome to the big leagues, kid!” Babe said, before heading out to the on-deck circle. Tony Lazzeri slid over on the bench so he was sitting next to me. The umpire waved Combs to second base on the overthrow.

  Charlie Root wasn’t happy about the error. He was stamping around the mound like an angry bull. He walked the next batter, Joe Sewell, on five pitches. That put runners at first and second, nobody out, and it was Babe’s turn to hit. The crowd began to hoot and roar.

  My dad had told me that Babe was going to hit two homers in Game Three—one in the first inning and then hit his famous called shot in the fifth. So I knew he was about to hit one. I was dying to tell somebody, but I restrained myself.

  “Pickle one, Babe!” Bill Dickey shouted as Babe walked slowly to the plate.

  If anyone in Wrigley Field didn’t know Babe was up, the big number 3 on his back said it loud and clear. He took his time, adjusting his uniform, chatting with the umpire, and drinking in the attention. Babe was a lefthanded pull hitter, and the outfielders shifted around toward rightfield.

  Lou Gehrig got out of the dugout and kneeled in the on-deck circle. He wore number 4. The Yankees assigned numbers according to the batting order.

  The Chicago Cubs were not impressed that the most famous player in the history of the game was at bat.

  “Hey, fatso!” one of the Cubs yelled from the home dugout, “you’re all washed up, you balloon-headed meatball!”
<
br />   “If I had your nose full of nickels, Ruth, I’d be a rich man!”

  “Babe, they oughta hitch you to a wagon, you old potbelly!”

  Babe laughed. He answered them back, but he wasn’t nearly as imaginative as the Cub hecklers. Babe’s replies were along the lines of “Oh, yeah?” “Says who?” and “So’s your old man!”

  Babe stepped into the batter’s box and took his stance. He kept his feet close together, so close they were almost touching. His right toe was just a little closer to the plate than his left. He held his bat at the very end; in fact, his pinky finger curled around the knob. As he took a practice swing, he picked up his right foot and glided forward.

  Babe didn’t swing level, the way Coach Zippel always told us to. His swing was a big uppercut. He didn’t lunge or hurry it. It was menacing, but calm and controlled. It was a beautiful thing to watch.

  Charlie Root looked in for the sign. The Cubs were heckling Babe, but he didn’t notice. He was concentrating on Root’s right arm. It looked like a building could collapse right next to him, and he wouldn’t notice.

  “He’s gonna hit one,” I mumbled under my breath.

  “How do you know?” Lazzeri asked.

  “I just know,” I replied. “I’m calling his shot.”

  Root’s first pitch was outside. Babe let it go by. Ball one.

  His second pitch was inside. Root looked like he was pitching more carefully to Babe than he had to Combs or Sewell. Two balls and no strikes. It was a hitter’s count.

  “Get it over the plate,” one of the Yankees hollered, “you yellow-bellied chowderhead!”

  Root started his windup and pumped in the next pitch. It looked like a fastball to me, on the outside corner. Babe brought back his bat slightly and whipped it around so hard he almost fell over. Somehow, he managed to connect.

  It looked like a fastball to me. Babe brought back his bat and whipped it around so hard he almost fell over.

  The sound of Babe’s bat hitting a baseball was different from the sound anyone else’s bat made. It was a sharp crack, something like two rocks smacking against each other, hard. The explosion echoed around the stadium.

  When the ball left the bat, everyone in the dugout—everyone in the ballpark—rose to their feet to follow its path. This was no line drive. It was a towering moon shot that seemed to hang in the air forever. Babe was almost to second base when the ball finally returned to Earth, deep in the rightfield bleachers.

  Gone!

  In the dugout, the Yankees jumped up and down, and so did I. They were ahead by three runs, and they hadn’t even made an out yet. Babe trotted around the bases in little mincing steps, a smile on his big face. Combs and Sewell were waiting to congratulate him when he got to the plate.

  “What a wallop!” Lazzeri marveled.

  “Told you he was going to hit one,” I said.

  “So what?” Lazzeri replied, spitting on the dugout floor. “He hits ’em all the time.”

  “He’s gonna hit another one,” I whispered, “in the fifth inning.”

  It shouldn’t have come as a big shock that Babe would hit one out of the park, but the Cub fans sat in their seats, stunned and silent. Babe paused on his way back to the dugout to tip his cap and give a little military salute to the fans. Then he stuck his tongue through his lips and blew a raspberry at them.

  “Hey, Charlie, how do you like them apples?” Babe screamed at Root, who was fuming on the mound. “Was that your best fastball? Looked like a change-up to me. I knocked it into the middle of next week! Eat your hearts out, you bums!”

  Babe laughed all the way into the Yankee dugout, where the team pounded him on the back.

  “Whew!” he exclaimed, wiping his face with a towel as he sat heavily down next to me on the bench. “I’m bushed!”

  “From hitting one that hard?” I asked.

  “Hitting them is the easy part,” Babe replied. “It’s running around them bases that wears me out.”

  While everybody on the bench was laughing, Lou Gehrig walked slowly to the plate. He was different from Babe in just about every way. He was quiet and nervous. He didn’t want to be the center of attention. You almost didn’t notice he was around.

  He was a little shorter than Babe, but more muscular. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. His thighs were thick and his shoulders wide. His muscles strained against his uniform.

  Lou stood closer to the plate than Babe did. He kept his feet much farther apart and took a very short stride. His swing was quick and compact. He didn’t corkscrew around the way the Babe did. But it was a more ferocious swing. Gehrig didn’t hit high-flying moon shots. He hit line drives that could rip an infielder’s glove off his hand.

  Not this time, though. Gehrig took a cut at Root’s first pitch and grounded out to first base.

  The Yankees didn’t score any more runs in the first inning. Before the Cubs came to bat, Tony Lazzeri asked me to go get a hot dog for him. I did, and while I was running around the stands looking for a hot dog vendor, the Cubs put a run on the board. The score was 3–1 after one inning.

  Babe came to bat again in the second inning and almost hit another one out, but his drive was caught a few feet in front of the centerfield fence. In the third inning, Lou Gehrig got hold of one and drove it over the rightfield wall. That made it 4-1. Then Kiki Cuyler of the Cubs hit a homer, and suddenly the Cubs were back in the game. In the fourth inning, they tied it at 4–4 on a couple of dinky hits and Yankee errors.

  But those innings went by in a blur to me. I couldn’t concentrate. For one thing, I kept looking around to see if my dad had returned. For another, I knew Babe was going to hit the called shot in the fifth inning, and I kept thinking about it. Also, Tony Lazzeri asked me to get him two more hot dogs, so I spent half the time running around the stands.

  When the Yankees got the third Cub out in the fourth inning and trotted into the dugout, my heart began beating faster. Babe would be the second Yankee to bat in the fifth.

  It was the moment I had been waiting for.

  16

  The Called Shot

  I STUDIED THE SCOREBOARD CAREFULLY. I WANTED TO make sure I had everything right. It was the top of the fifth inning. Game Three. The score was 4–4. Charlie Root was still on the mound for the Cubs. Joe Sewell was up for the Yankees. Babe went out to the on-deck circle.

  Yes, everything was exactly the way Dad told me it would be. Babe was about to hit the most famous home run in baseball history.

  The crowd settled down and Root prepared to pitch to Joe Sewell. They played cat and mouse for a few pitches, then Sewell rapped a sharp grounder to short. He was out by a step.

  The noise of the crowd increased as Babe approached home plate. It always did. He had booted a ball out in leftfield in the fourth inning and the fans were letting him have it. A single lemon flew out of the stands and bounced near home plate. The boos got louder when the umpire picked up the lemon and tossed it aside.

  In the Cub dugout, most of the players were up on the steps, yelling and taunting Babe.

  “Drop dead, you big baboon!” one of them hollered.

  “Hey, fatso!” yelled another. “When’s the last time you saw your feet, you dumb sap?”

  “Ah, go soak your heads!” Babe replied. He wasn’t angry. He was smiling, even laughing. It looked like he enjoyed being heckled and heckling back.

  As Babe stepped into the batter’s box, Lou Gehrig climbed out of the dugout and went to kneel in the on-deck circle.

  Charlie Root peered in for his sign. He didn’t look scared of Babe; he looked determined. Babe had already hit one homer and nearly hit a second one. I almost expected Root to knock Babe down, but instead he burned in a pitch right over the plate. It looked like a fastball. Babe let it go by. When the ump called strike one, the crowd erupted into cheers.

  “Fog it in, Charlie!” one of the Cubs yelled. “That big lummox ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit.”

  “Hey, buffalo butt! Is tha
t your mug, Ruth, or were you hit with a really ugly stick?”

  The Cubs were having a good time. They were putting their thumbs in their ears and wiggling their fingers at Babe as they shouted at him. They fell all over each other, laughing with each remark.

  “Go suck an egg, you bums!” Babe shouted back.

  Babe held his bat loosely in his left hand as he stepped out of the batter’s box. Still grinning, he looked over at the Cub bench and raised one finger of his right hand in the air. That’s one, he was telling them.

  When Babe stepped back in, Root threw another pitch, a little slower. It was inside, for ball one.

  The next pitch was outside for ball two.

  “Booooooo!” screamed the crowd.

  Root went into his windup and Babe watched him intently. It looked like he thought about swinging, then changed his mind and let the pitch go by. The umpire called it strike two.

  The crowd exploded in cheers. It was deafening. One more strike and they’d have him.

  “Time to retire, beer belly! You’re finished.”

  The Cubs were all the way out of their dugout now, trying to scream at Babe over the crowd noise.

  Babe stepped out of the box again. He wiped his hands on his pants. Then he held up two fingers on his right hand.

  “It only takes one to hit it,” he announced, pointing his bat toward the Cub dugout.

  “Shut up, you fat blimp!”

  This was it. Two balls, two strikes. Two and two. That was the count Dad told me Babe would hit the called shot on. I opened my eyes wide. I didn’t want to blink for fear of missing it.

  “Hey, kid,” Tony Lazzeri said to me, “how about getting me another hot dog?”

  “Not now!” I barked, not even looking at him.

  “Get back in the box, you big galoot,” hollered Charlie Root from the mound.

  “I’m gonna knock the next pitch down your throat!” Babe replied.

  And then he pointed.

  It was quick, and you could have missed it if you weren’t watching carefully. But he pointed. I was sure of it. Right over Root’s head. Straight to centerfield. Babe was holding his bat in his left hand, resting it on his left shoulder. He took his right hand off the bat for an instant and pointed with two fingers of his right hand to centerfield. It was like he was aiming a gun.