The Selling of the Babe (18 page)

But in Boston's first exhibition game against the Giants on April 3, that all changed. For Ruth, it may well have been the most important home run of his career, at least to that point.

It rained a bit earlier in the day, but by afternoon the skies had cleared and the sun shone bright and hot. In racing terms, that left the field dry and fast. The evangelist Billy Sunday, a former ballplayer himself, was on hand to throw out the first pitch. More than 6,000 fans, a huge crowd for a city of 50,000, turned out for the game.

After a scoreless first, Ruth, batting fourth and playing left field after pitching the day before in a practice game, led off the second inning versus the Giants' Ivy Leaguer, pitcher “Columbia” George Smith. With the count 3-and-1, Ruth “leaned on it” as the
Boston Post
reported, and sent a drive to deep right center field. New York right fielder Ross Youngs started back but soon pulled up.

It was one of those hits that got small fast. The ball landed far over the temporary fence in right, then bounced and kept going. Ruth trotted around the bases as the huge crowd, who filled the grandstand and pushed up against the fence, gave him a rousing ovation. This is what they had all come out to see, and what the papers had been promising all week. While the Boston and New York papers more or less put the drive in context, in Tampa it was another matter. The next morning the headline in the
Tampa Tribune
screamed “Ruth Drives Giants to Defeat and Makes 'Em Drink B' Gads!”

Perhaps no single Ruthian home run apart from his called shot against the Chicago Cubs has been written about more, yet at the time it was struck, the home run caused little special comment. Not that it wasn't hit a long way—it was. The
Globe
's Mel Webb announced it would have cleared the fence in front of the bleachers at Fenway Park—that meant a drive of about 400 feet, at least, and worthy of attention, but he didn't go overboard. And in the
Post
Shannon noted that it was the mightiest home run swat that Tampa fans had ever witnessed, writing that it “fell far beyond the race track fence,” whatever that was, leaving it unclear whether he meant the temporary fence or the track rail. But like Ruth's called shot, the lore around the home run would overshadow the hit itself. Most reports at the time stated the ball landed in front of the rail, but that was slowly inflated, the ball later described as landing on the track itself, and sometimes even clearing the opposite side.

Given the size of the crowd, it's unlikely that the press, sitting in the grandstand boxes near the base of the stands, actually got a good view of the hit. And although there were reportedly a dozen movie cameramen on hand because of the presence of Billy Sunday, none apparently trained their lens on Ruth and captured the blast. Had they done so, that would have been the end of it.

In regard to Ruth, the beginning of a story rarely matches the end, and over time, more and more details about the exhibition game home run emerged. Years later, in his own ghostwritten autobiography, Ed Barrow wrote, “After the game, Youngs marked as nearly as he could the spot the ball landed. Melvin Webb, baseball writer for the
Boston Globe
, got a surveyor's tape and measured it. It measured 579 feet.”

Since then, the accepted, measured distance became 508 feet on the fly and 579 to the ball's final resting place. There's even a historical marker in place today, marking the spot on the campus of the University of Tampa. Yet some still insist the ball traveled closer to the second figure on the fly and rolled to a distance of more than 600 feet.

Interestingly enough, Webb himself never adopted the figure, at least not in his reports at the time, which calls the whole thing into question. After first just describing the hit by saying it would have made Fenway's right field bleachers, a week later he referred to it in the
Globe
as a “550-foot homer.” In subsequent references in 1919 he never put another number on it.

Over time, the home run—hit in an exhibition game on a substandard field—would often be referred to as the longest in baseball history—which is, frankly, absurd. Given the conditions of the day, even if a brand-new baseball were in play, such a drive was near to impossible. And given the configuration of the field, and the fact that observers were estimating both landing points, the veracity of the numbers is even more debatable. Let's not forget that Youngs didn't chase the ball and certainly didn't jump over the fence after it. Then again, there is no record of the atmospheric conditions that day—wind, temperature, and humidity can significantly boost the carry of a baseball. If a gale of 30 mph or so were blowing the right direction or a rogue gust arrived from the heavens, and it was both hot and humid, a perfectly struck baseball could conceivably travel 50 or 60 feet farther in the air than would otherwise be possible, turning a drive of 400-plus feet into one closer to 500. If that is the case, then perhaps—perhaps—the accepted distance is reasonably accurate. After all, the Giants' John McGraw reportedly later said “it was the longest ball I ever saw.” And it so excited representatives of the nearby city of St. Petersburg that they changed their plans to try to entice the Giants to train across the bay in their city. Instead, they targeted the Red Sox.

Still, while it is theoretically possible for Ruth's drive to have traveled 500 feet or so in the air, it is important to understand that even with the lively ball, under optimal conditions, it is extremely rare for a home run to travel so far—the laws of physics just don't allow it. Using the standard ball from 1918, it would be even less likely. As an aside, it's interesting to note that virtually all of Ruth's really, really long home runs always occur in places where measurements are virtually impossible, over fences and rooftops, and landing in lawns and on streets. Yet when he played in a place where his blast could be easily measured, say to dead center field in the Polo Grounds, he conveniently never hit one there.

But it's possible Ruth didn't hit a standard ball that day in Tampa. This was Boston's first exhibition game of the year, and the first time a major league team had trained in Tampa since 1914, and the city was eager to develop the area as a spring training mecca. Speculation over whether Ruth could hit the ball to the track had been appearing in newspapers almost daily, almost as if someone knew something in advance.

Could Ruth have been given some help to hit the home run, perhaps with a special, more lively baseball, in the hope of generating some publicity? It was, after all, only an exhibition. A long home run would help everyone, so why not slip a special ball into play when Ruth came to bat? And given the way Ruth would perform in the next few weeks, if it worked at that game at Tampa, then why not during the remainder of the exhibition season? A special, more resilient and livelier ball had been manufactured during the war for use by the troops overseas. Even though the Reach company made the official ball, there was no one to check or who even cared what ball they used in exhibition games. Every baseball manufacturer made baseballs any way they wanted, and some were undoubtedly livelier than the “official” ball.

Although the home run ball itself allegedly exists, signed by Barrow and Ruth and given to Billy Sunday, there is no way to ascertain whether that is actually the ball in question. While the possible use of a special livelier ball is purely circumstantial, and speculative, it is certainly possible. Yet one thing is certain: over the remainder of the exhibition schedule and, in particular, as the Red Sox barnstormed northward, Ruth put on a home run performance unmatched at any point in his career. Something was going on.

So much of what Ruth did and who he was is wrapped in so much mythology that it is often impossible to wade through to hard facts. Take, for example, his bats, which, according to the source and stage of his career, have been variously described as weighing between 40 and 54 ounces and were long assumed by many to be the reason he hit such long home runs, just as corked bats presumably make it easier. Yet physics tells us that it is not the weight of the bat that matters as much as does bat speed, and that it is simply not possible to swing a bat as heavy as those used by Ruth fast enough to hit such monstrous home runs as he is credited.

Accidental or not, no matter how far the ball was hit, it served its purpose for everyone, but for no one more than Ruth himself. For one, after hitting that first home run, it kept him on the field for the remaining exhibitions. The resulting press, not just in Boston but in New York where the Giants' spring performance was of less interest than Ruth's, raised his profile even higher in the city where he performed like he did nowhere else and where—what a coincidence!—the Red Sox opened the 1919 season against the Yankees at the Polo Grounds. No fewer than eleven New York sportswriters traveled to Tampa with the Giants, and Ruth's hit gave them all something to write home about. Barrow even later credited the blast as the determining factor in his decision to turn Ruth into a hitter. As Boston played its way toward New England, something that first started to take place during the 1918 season continued. Until that time, the vast majority of fans reserved their allegiance to a team first, and a city or a region, not an individual player. Oh, they loved their stars, such as the Tigers' Cobb, the White Sox' Joe Jackson, but only a few players had been truly transcendent, their personal popularity spilling over the borders and crossing the competitive lines, an object of affection more important than a team. Christy Mathewson of the Giants had been one such figure, not only a fabulous pitcher but, with more than a little help from the press, a beloved symbol of all that was good in the game, the kind of player mothers and fathers held up as an example to their children. It was something of a lie—Mathewson was never quite the milquetoast he was made out to be—but even fans who rooted against the Giants had worshipped him. Pirate shortstop Honus Wagner earned a similar reputation, but lacked Mathewson's publicity machine.

Ruth was rapidly becoming another such transcendent figure. Fans cared more about him than the team he played on, and outside Boston and Baltimore, his peccadilloes were less well known and the myth of the big overgrown boy was easier to manufacture and sell. For the first time, the myth of Ruth was beginning to usurp the reality. And unlike Mathewson, Ruth played every day. On most mornings, baseball fans checked the scores of eight games, four in each league. Ruth's performance at bat—“Did he hit another homer?”—gave them one more thing to check each day.

The Red Sox looked good during the exhibitions, winning four of six games from the Giants as Ruth batted a robust .381, but Barrow continued to worry over his pitching staff. Mays and Joe Bush each nursed sore arms, and Ruth was still not in shape to pitch—Webb noted, “Babe doesn't feel right yet and is keeping away from the slab altogether.” It didn't hurt him at the plate, however, as in almost every exhibition game he cracked a homer and references to the blast in Tampa kept growing a nose, long blasts ever more described in terms of how close they came to matching the legendary racetrack home run.

His spring performance peaked in Baltimore, where Harry Frazee joined the team and the Red Sox played Ruth's old Orioles club in two exhibition games. Once again, Ruth pushed the boundaries of believability.

They played at Baltimore's Terrapin Park, which had been the home of Baltimore's Federal League team. Although the dimensions are not known precisely, the outfield was long and narrow, deep in center field ending in a point. But it was a short poke down either foul line, and in exhibitions overflow crowds routinely lined the outfield in front of the stands, possibly making the dimensions even more cozy.

A good crowd turned out to see their hometown hero on April 18 and Ruth did not disappoint. He came to bat six times. He walked twice. And on the four other occasions, including his last three at bats, he hit a home run. One may have benefited from the close crowd, a rather routine fly that turned into a home run, but the other three were legitimate, at least in terms of clearing the existing fence. Shannon noted the next day, “The Red Sox are a great ball team, but there are two pairs of Red Sox, and only one Babe Ruth.”

Once again, it was a performance that tested the borders of belief, made even more remarkable by the fact that it was a cool day. Over the last couple of exhibitions, Ruth was 7-for-8 with five home runs and two singles.

It got better the next day. In his first two times up here he homered again, giving him five consecutive home runs and making him 9-for-10 with seven home runs over his last four games, something hard enough to do in batting practice when he knew what was coming, not to mention in game conditions, even against minor leaguers. The Sox romped over the Orioles, winning 12–3 and 16–2—a not unexpected outcome given that the Orioles had barely practiced that spring due to poor weather. It's doubtful their pitchers were even throwing full speed by then.

Ruth's first home run in the second game is the drive that calls the veracity of the blasts into question. The best estimate of the distance to the fence in dead center is about 450 feet. Ruth's blast reportedly not only cleared the fence but the street behind it and then landed on the roof of a house. Webb called it the “next longest wallop to his 550-foot drive in Tampa.” That Ruth was the most powerful hitter in the game at the time is unquestioned. That he could hit home runs in six of eight at bats over the course of two games, including five in a row … raises some doubts. The evidence, once again, is circumstantial, but it is not unthinkable that Ruth might have benefited from a juiced-up ball with a nod and a wink from everyone involved, not only the Orioles, but also the press and even Harry Frazee. After all, the old theater adage “give the people what they want” still held true. His home runs made a lot of newsboys and sports editors happy. “Ruth Hits Home Run” sold almost as many papers as “Yanks Have Hun on the Run” once had.