The Big Fella
Page 58
Greenwood Lake: Sally Jo Greck, Deems Grabowski, Steve Gross, Walter Petaluna, and Skip Hart, who re-created Babe’s life among them.
Baseball guys: Yogi Berra, Monte Irvin, Phil Coyne, Mike Rizzo, Bill DeWitt, Charlie Silvera, Dick Beverage, and Babe’s alter ego, C. J. Wilson.
Fanboys of long-ago summers who met or saw or mourned the Babe, some of whom I mourn now: Rugger Ardizoia, Mike Klepfer, Jack McKinney, George Morgenweck, George Nicholau, Anthony Puliatti, Sig Seidenman, Blake Talbot, and most especially the ineffable Roger Angell and the Honorable John Paul Stevens for his personal testimony to the Called Shot.
When no living sources could be found, the information I needed was ferreted out by a cadre of librarians and archivists to whom I pledge my troth, chief among them Jeff Flannery, head of the Manuscript Reading Room at the Library of Congress, who can find anything, and Paul Janov, now retired, who found everything else. Malea Walker provided additional help.
At the New York Public Library, Tal Nadan and Rebecca Federman. Kevin Cawley at the University Archives, University of Notre Dame, where the archives of the Xaverian Brothers are housed, along with Knute Rockne’s papers, including his correspondence with Christy Walsh; Nancy Pope at the National Postal Museum; Anne Thomason, archivist for the Joseph Patterson Collection at Lake Forest College; the Japanese American Historical Archives; and Lesley Martin, Chicago History Museum Research Center, Kenesaw Mountain Landis papers.
Jennifer Hafner and Owen Lourie at the Maryland State Archives, and Jennifer Fauxsmith at the Massachusetts Archives, who located the documents that allowed a peek into the history of the Ruths of Baltimore and Boston.
In cities and towns that Ruth inhabited or visited on the 1927 tour: Francis O’Neill, Maryland Historical Society; Christopher Boone, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University; Sarah E. Hinman, Leiden University, Netherlands; Jerry Williams, Baltimore Trolley Museum; Ellen Warnock, Catholic Charities, Baltimore; Mary Ann Moran-Savakinus, Lackawana Historical Society; Jonathan Gust, Villanova University; Marta Otero, Asbury Park Library; Kate Wells, Providence Library; Caleb Horton, Rhode Island State Archives; Anna Selfridge, Allen County Museum, Lima, Ohio; Lee Swanson, Sudbury Historical Society; Kara Evans, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library; Jean Svadlenak, Lee Jeans, historian; Theresa Gipson, Mercy Hospital, Kansas City; Emiel D. Cleaver, Black Archives of Mid-America; Kenneth J. LaBudde, Nichols Library, University of Missouri Kansas City; Andrea Falling, Nebraska State Historical Society; Amy C. Schindler, Criss Library at the University of Nebraska-Omaha; Benjamin L. Clark, archivist, Boys Town, Omaha; Tom Carey, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library; Catherine Mills, Archives History San Jose; Acuna Espinosa, Fresno County Public Library; Patrick Ogle, Fresno State University; and Tricia Ford, the director of my beloved summer sanctuary, the Truro Public Library.
What they couldn’t find, my more than generous colleagues supplied. Leigh Montville, whose biography The Big Bam preceded and informed my own, shared the transcripts of interviews conducted by Jerome Holtzman. Bob Creamer offered his unique take on the Babe in the months before his death. His son, Jim Creamer, and friend Paul Ferrante shared letters and papers from Bob’s precedent-setting book, including his correspondence with Waite Hoyt.
Jonathan Eig, author of Luckiest Man, passed on a trove of barnstorming clippings he collected in his research and invaluable insights into his subject, Lou Gehrig; Richard Sandomir, author of The Pride of the Yankees, shared gossipy correspondence between Eleanor Gehrig and Christy Walsh; Gregg Kaufman and R. A. Cabral, who had the notion to re-create “The Symphony of Swat,” before it occurred to me to do it, shared their research and intelligence. Although writing on a similar subject, Tom Barthel took my calls and shared information. Chris Martens, the ghostwriter on Dorothy Ruth Pirone’s 1988 memoir, shared her handwritten notes.
Dennis Snelling, Rob Neyer, and Jeff Passan did legwork for me. Seriously.
Ed Achorn, Jean Ardell, Dave Bohmer, Paul Dickson, Tom Friend, Arnold Hano, Terry Hersom, John Holway, Richard Johnson, Steve Kettmann, Tim Kurkjian, Mike Lackey, Elizabeth Laval, Jon Leonoudakis, Matt Lloyd, Paula Lloyd, David A. Mark, Mike McDermott, Mark Patton, the late Ray Robinson, Vin Scully, Dan Shaughnessy, Steve Steinberg, Charley Steiner, the late Bob Wolf, and Steve Wulf all had stories to tell or tips to share and leads to follow. Bill James put it all together in the way that only he can.
Shout-outs:
For their knowledge of Brother Matthias, St. Mary’s, and the Xaverian Brothers: Kathy Carmody, Francis X. McGillivary, Jean Mor, Brother Arcadius Alkonis, and Brother Peter Donohue.
For their expertise in the physics and biomechanics of hitting a baseball: Jason Ochart, Jim Lefebvre, Preston Peavy, the late Dave Vincent, and always and most especially Alan Nathan.
For their expertise in the world of sports agenting, advertising, marketing, memorabilia, and promotion: Scott Boras; Leigh Steinberg; Ken Goldin, Goldin Auctions; Pete Siegel, Gotta Have It Collectibles; J. P. Cohen, Memory Lane, Inc.; Rich Mueller, editor of Sports Collectors Daily; Tim Slavin at MLBPA; Fred Toulch; John Reznikoff; Jerry Della Femina; and George Lois.
For their legal, economic, and medical counsel: Lawrence Altman, Lori Andrews, Ev Ehrlich, Amy Katz, Laurence J. Lebowitz, Mary Moran, Moses Schanfield, and CeCe Moore at the DNA Detectives.
For sharing the images that illuminated Ruth in his time: Jay Gauthreaux, John Horne, Bruce Menard, Stephanie L. Stricker, Ben Weingarten, Anne Wermiel, and Wayne Wilson.
For acts of kindness and competence: Mark Rathbun, Ellen Victor, Steve Marmon, Sean Lamarre, and Brian Combs.
For being indefatigable and patient with my very disorganized self, my cohort of research assistants: darling Claire Ulak, Rachel Lesaar, Terry Tatum, and Alex Holt. Craig Dougherty, an online sleuth and genealogist, whom I met through ancestry.com, was responsible for getting the research started. If he quits his day job, I know what he should do. And JR, who doesn’t think she did anything to help, did the greatest service of all. She made me realize I wasn’t alone with the Babe.
For making the computer cooperate and making inaudible interviews resemble human speech: Rick Prescott, Bruce Maliken, and Marti Hagan of WordWizards.
For being my go-to guys: Marty Appel, Steve Fehr, Rob Fleder, Jeff Katz, Dan “Subtitle” Okrent, John Powers, and Nick Trotta.
For being my go-to gals: anatomical goddess Amy Engelsman, front-office doyenne Harolyn Cardozo, and Janet Marie Smith, who makes baseball more beautiful every day; everyday life enablers Amy Sachs, Toni Cortellessa, and Jordana Carmel; and book group stalwarts Carole, Deborah, Kim, Madalyn, Leslie, Lynn, and Other Jane.
For making me feel at home in Cooperstown: Jim Gates, Bill Francis, Bruce Markusen, Tim Wiles, and Cassidy Lent.
For giving me a social media presence: Antonella Iannarino.
For giving me a chance: George Solomon and Mary Hadar.
For so much more than I can say, my MVPs:
Tom Shieber, senior curator at the Hall of Fame, answered every query, corrected every mistake, read every page, and never lost patience or enthusiasm for the task. Chris Ivy, director of sports auctions at Heritage Auctions, shared information from the Christy Walsh catalogs, making my understanding of the Ruth-Walsh relationship possible.
Michael Haupert, professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, crunched every number and never once laughed at my lack of mathematical proficiency. This is his book as much as it is mine.
Kevin Goering, über–sports law attorney, provided expert counsel in the history of the right of publicity and did legwork in dusty storage rooms of New York City courthouses with enthusiasm verging on glee.
Bill Jenkinson, author of The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs and historian of all things Babe, made his comprehensive and painstakingly compiled ledger of Ruth’s every game—regular, spring training, barnstorming, and home run—available to me. Better yet, he made himself available.
Fred Shoken, Baltimore historian and historic preservation specialist, made me my very own binder of his research into the city of Ruth’s birth, census documents, family papers, and news clippings that I never would have found on my own.
David Stinson, author/sleuth of all things Baltimore, escorted me through the back alleys of the Babe’s hometown, in search of clues to his past and an understanding of his formative years.
Matthew Zaft, financial adviser at Morgan Stanley in Washington, gamely accepted five hundred pages of badly Xeroxed financial documents dating back to 1927 and made sense of them and thus made sense of the economic force the Babe became.
John Thorn, the elegant and always definitive official historian of Major League Baseball, read every word and saved my tokhes more times than anyone but the copy editor can count. Yes, prior to 1969: it is major-league baseball, no caps.
Carole Horn, healer, helper, editor, Renaissance woman, and reader for all things medical in the book, refused to let me look stupid.
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford professor of cultural history, soccer aficionado, and expert on the aesthetics of sport, shaped my thinking and approach to the subject with his discussion on the advent of stardom in In 1926: Living on the Edge of Time. Thanks for making me smart.
Mike Gibbons, director emeritus at the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum, shared invaluable tape-recorded interviews of sources no longer alive, including Ruth’s sister Mamie Ruth Moberly. And he made me brave when, during our first conversation, he answered my question about which Babe book he considered definitive, by saying, “It hasn’t been written yet.”
For being my peeps and VIPs: Hal, Marilyn, and the whole Weiner gang; Sid and Diana Tabak; Judith and Kosta Tsipis; Roberta Falke and Andy Levey; Rhonda Schwartz and Steve Wermiel; Kim Sammis and Jim Ulak; Bonnie Nelson Schwartz and Arlie Schardt; Leslie Harris and Peter Basch; Mary Brittingham and David Plocher; Gerri Hirshey and Mark Zwonitzer; Elissa Poteat, Brad Garrett, and Mr. Max; Alan and Terry Chebot; Mark and Lori Roux; John and Yvette Dubinsky; Dick and Caren Lobo; Norman Steinberg; Gloria Weissberg; Steven Phillips. For being my ports in the storm: Amy Katz and Irv Sher; Barbara and Alan Weinschel.
For being the best first readers any writer could imagine: Dave Kindred and Robert Pinsky. Gail Mazur—baseball muse.
For making life possible: in Washington, Ann Hess; in Truro, Jeremy Young and Maria Volpe.
For making Bette’s life possible: Janno Parky; Adam and Callie Crain; Julian and Dylan Ann Ambrose, and their enablers Ivy and Michael Meeropol; Eliot and Owen Taber; Kaira von Salis, Paulo and Bruno Frias; Audrey and James Acres.
For being my main man: David Black, knight errant among literary agents, and his round table of noble jousters, led by Matt Belford. David, you are my liege.
For my boy, Nick, who bravely hefted the Babe’s bat over his seven-year-old shoulder and gave me a way to begin.
At HarperCollins, I’ve got what you call deep depth: art guys, cover designer Milan Bozic and book designer Bill Ruoto, who made it look so good and worked so hard doing it; PR goddess Kate D’Esmond, who made sure it got seen; marketing dude Tom Hopke, who made a dream come true. The production wizard who turned a mess into a book: David Koral, senior production editor.
Jane Cavolina made sure I didn’t make too many mistakes. Beth Silfin made sure I didn’t do anything dumb. Publisher Doug Jones and sales president Josh Marwell made the Babe their cause. Sarah Ried, Brooklyn’s finest, and her predecessor, Erin Wicks, made my writing life as easy as it was possible for it to be. Jonathan Burnham, publisher, granted my wish.
Former editor David Hirshey brought me into the fold and out of left field when he asked me to write about Sandy Koufax in 1999. Before departing for some well-deserved beach time, he published The Last Boy to perfection, nurtured the embryonic Big Fella, and turned me over to Jennifer Barth, Mets masochist and editrix extraordinaire, who already had a full roster of big-league talent when she inherited me.
She not only made room in her all-star lineup for me and the Babe, but she arrived on my doorstep in Birkenstocks and sunglasses with soft (editorial) hands, a keen eye for anything wide of the mark, and the chops to call me on it. She’s a gamer. How lucky I am to be her player-to-be-named-later.
Appendix 1: The Power of the Man
FULL NAME: George Herman Ruth
BORN: February 6, 1895, Baltimore, Maryland
DIED: August 16, 1948, New York, New York
Buried at Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven, Hawthorne, New York (Section 25, Lot 1115, Center of Graves 3 and 4)
FIRST GAME: July 11, 1914
FINAL GAME: May 30, 1935
BAT: Left
THROW: Left
HEIGHT: 6' 2"
WEIGHT: 215
SELECTED TO THE HALL OF FAME: 1936 (95.1%)
AWARDS: 1916 AL pitching title; 1923 AL MVP; 1924 AL Batting Title; Named outfielder on the Sporting News Major League All-Star Team (1926 to 1931)
EJECTIONS: 11
TRANSACTIONS: Sold by Baltimore (International) to Boston Red Sox with Ernie Shore and Ben Egan for more than $25,000 on July 9, 1914.
Sold by Boston Red Sox to New York Yankees for $100,000 on December 26, 1919.
Released by New York Yankees on February 26, 1935.
Signed by Boston Braves February 26, 1935.
His was a less precise time. Technology had not yet enabled the instant verification of miracles, leaving room for imagination and several municipalities—and one prison—to stake a claim and plant a sign on the alleged spot where the longest ball Babe Ruth ever hit came to rest. The language of those boasts is charmingly imprecise: “longest hit with the Boston Red Sox” (Tampa, Florida, 1919); “longest confirmed linear distance” (Navin Field, Detroit, 1921); “longest actually measured” (City Point, New York, 1925); “longest home run in competitive baseball history” (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 1926); “longest hit before a captive audience” (Sing-Sing Prison, Ossining, New York, 1929); “longest hit off major-league pitching” (St. Petersburg, Florida, 1934).
Measuring the Babe in his time—trying to pin him down—was as difficult as it was antithetical to his being. But try they did, if only in an effort to document their own incredulity. Bill Jenkinson, the author of The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs, has researched and logged eleven hundred Ruthian blows hit in regular-season, postseason, and exhibition games—and walked the path of perhaps half of them. Of Ruth’s sixty home runs in 1927, Jenkinson says, twenty-eight traveled between 400 and 450 feet; seventeen traveled between 450 and 500; three others broke the 500-foot barrier. All together in 1927, counting home runs he hit in every venue, including twenty on the barnstorming tour, Ruth hit thirty more home runs than the record books credit him with, according to Jenkinson.
The Babe announced the arrival of long-distance baseball in spring training 1919. Red Sox manager Ed Barrow was still anguishing over his decision to make Ruth a full-time outfielder. On April 5 in Tampa, Ruth hit a ball against the New York Giants that soared out of the ballpark and across a racetrack before coming to rest 587 feet away. (The specificity of the account was courtesy of Mel Webb of the Boston Globe, who asked the right fielder where the ball landed, and then fetched a tape measure.) A Florida historical marker marks the spot as “Babe’s Longest Homer.”
Two years later, on July 18, 1921, at Navin Field in Detroit, where he hit sixty of his 714 career home runs—including number 700—he hit a ball that according to Jenkinson is not only the longest of his career but the longest in major-league history. The ball had an 18-mile-an-hour wind and Ruth’s pent-up frustration behind it. (He had walked in four previous at-bats.) The distance from home plate to the place where the ball was last seen—exiting the ballpark where the wooden fence at the far end of the center field bleachers met concrete at the corner of Cherr
y and Trumbull Avenues—was 560 feet. The distance was confirmed with the aid of stadium blueprints provided by the head groundskeeper and “a sextant,” the New York Times reported.
The zeal to tether him to numbers and geometry caught up with him at Ahrco Field at New York City’s College Point in October 1925, as researcher Bruce Orser learned. In advance of the game, amateur surveyors, employees of the American Hard Rubber Company, laid out 590 feet of steel tape from home plate to the center field fence. Thus they were able to put an exact number on a ball he hit in the October 4 game—538 feet—qualifying it, Jenkinson says, as baseball’s first legitimate tape measure home run.
This was mere chicken feed compared with the one he would hit a year later in a barnstorming tour game at Artillery Park in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, two days after the end of the 1926 World Series. Ruth was playing hurt. He wasn’t wearing sliding pads when he tried and failed to steal second base in the ninth inning of Game 7, a fact that became apparent to twelve-year-old John Hogarth when he and his friend Billy Clark were invited to meet the Babe in his hotel room during his campaign through Pennsylvania. “The door opened and here’s Babe Ruth, sitting there in a chair in a jock strap and a sweatshirt—that’s all he had on!” Hogarth recalled in an interview recorded by his son in 1995 and posted on YouTube. “He said, ‘C’mere kids.’ I got on his left knee and Billy Clark got on his right knee. It was oozing blood at that time.”
This did not impede his swing in Wilkes-Barre. The game had to be called after six innings, due to delays caused by Ruth stopping to sign autographs. But Ruth wanted to keep hitting and challenged a local pitcher to throw his fastest pitch over the plate. The Associated Press described the result: “The ball cleared the right field fence 400 feet from the plate by more than 40 feet and was still ascending. The ball landed on the far side of the running track of a high school athletic field in Kirby Park. Officials estimated the length at 650 feet.”
The City of Wilkes-Barre built a permanent display in Kirby Park honoring the occasion. According to Jenkinson’s research, Ruth said it was the longest ball he had ever hit and asked for it to be measured, which was the only time he had ever done that.