Babe & Me (3 page)

FIRST I SAW THE CAR. IT WAS A HUGE MAROON THING, AND
it was honking like a flock of geese.

“It's a Packard Roadster,” Dad yelled to me over the cheering of the crowd. “Twelve cylinders. Custom built. Whitewalls. Beautiful machine.”

We pressed to get closer. The crowd surged around the car like iron filings around a magnet.

“It's him,” Dad said, beaming like a little boy. “Feast your eyes, Butch. You're seein' the great Babe Ruth in person.”

I'm not very good with faces. Sometimes I have to see somebody's face six or seven times before I recognize him. Once I was in the supermarket with my mom when my second grade teacher walked by. I had no idea who she was.

But the instant I saw Babe Ruth's face, I knew
exactly who
he
was. I'd seen his face in so many pictures.

I'm not very good with faces. But the instant I saw Babe Ruth's face, I knew exactly who
he
was.

His head was impossibly large and round. It was just about as wide as it was long. Ink-black hair fell casually across his forehead. His eyes seemed tiny compared to the rest of his head, but they were bright and laughing. His thick lips, wrapped around a big cigar, curved up in a wide grin. His nose was flattened, each nostril easily the size of a quarter. He was not a good-looking man. But the people gathered around as if he were a movie star.

“Hey, everybody!” the Babe hollered in a deep, booming voice. “Didja hear about the ball game?”

He had a slight Southern accent. He said the words “ball game” like “bowl game.” A cheer went up from the crowd when he spoke.

“Did we whup them Cubbies today, or what?” bellowed the Babe. The crowd cheered louder.

“Two down and two to go, Babe!” some guy hollered.

There was a guy in the passenger seat of the car, but I didn't know who he was. Babe stood up on his seat and waved. He was wearing a brown cloth coat. Even so, I could tell he was a tall, heavy man with a beer belly. He resembled a big bear.

“We'll beat them bums in Chicago on Saturday and Sunday,” Babe promised, “and bring that world championship back to New York where it belongs!”

 

The crowd erupted in cheers again. I looked around. Fathers were hoisting their little kids up on their shoulders to get a look at the Babe. Women were swooning. Some people just stared at him, mesmerized. It was like the biggest rock star in the world happened to stop by.

The bad feelings that had gripped the crowd earlier were gone. It didn't seem like a riot anymore. It seemed like a parade. Everybody was happy suddenly. Somebody tossed Babe a straw hat and he put it on.

“You oughta run for president, Bambino!” some guy shouted. “Hoover and Roosevelt are bums!”

The bad feelings that had gripped the crowd earlier were gone. It was like the biggest rock star in the world happened to stop by.

“That's not a bad idea.” Babe chortled, his big belly shaking.

“Vote for Ruth!” people began to chant. “Vote for Ruth!”

People had started pulling pencils and scraps of
paper from their pockets. Kids pressed forward to hand them to the Babe. Patiently, he signed one for a little girl, carefully writing his name and saying a few words to her. As he accepted the next scrap of paper, the girl looked at the autograph like it was a million-dollar bill.

“Ask him for an autograph, Joe,” Dad said.

I was a little embarrassed. “
You
ask him,” I said.

“He's supposed to be a sucker for kids,” Dad pointed out. “
You
ask him.”

Babe was still signing away for the people pressed against his car. I patted my pockets. All I could come up with was the pack of baseball cards I had brought with me to get us home.

“I could have him sign a card,” I suggested.

“Forget that,” Dad snorted. “Imagine trying to convince a card dealer that Babe Ruth signed a baseball card from the twenty-first century.”

“Just a few more, kids!” Babe yelled. “I gotta go.”

Dad and I looked around on the ground frantically to see if we could find a scrap of paper. But everybody had scooped them up already.

I think Dad and I saw it at the same moment. A little boy ran by. As he passed us, a piece of paper fell out of his pocket. The boy didn't notice. I pounced on the paper.

“Way to go, Joe!” Dad exclaimed, slapping me five.

Dad and I were congratulating each other when this guy came over to us. He was a tall guy, much bigger than my dad.

“I believe that belongs to my son,” the guy told Dad.

“Finders keepers,” I said.

It was probably not the smartest thing to say. The guy reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife. The blade was about eight inches long. I stepped back instinctively. My heart was suddenly pounding.

“How's about I cut off your @#$% hand?” the guy said, “and we'll see who finds
that?”

“Leave my boy alone!” Dad shouted, stepping forward as he pushed me out of the way of the knife.

“Okay, I'll cut off
your
@#$% hand if you don't give back my son's autograph.”

“Watch your language,” Dad said. “Kids don't have to hear that kind of talk.”

“Forget it, Daddy,” the little boy said. “That boy can have it.”

“Here,” I said, handing the kid the paper. “It's not a big deal.”

“Smart boy,” the kid's father said as he slipped the knife back in his jacket. “Come on, Jimmy. Let's go.”

It wasn't until they walked away that I realized how fast my heart was racing. I had to take a few deep breaths to calm myself down. By that time, Babe Ruth had roared off in his Packard. Our chance to get his autograph was gone. The crowd began to break up.

“You okay, Joe?” my dad asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah, thanks, Dad.”

“For what?”

“For sticking up for me.”

“What did you think I was gonna do?” Dad asked. “Just stand there and do nothing?”

I didn't say so, but that was exactly what I'd thought he would do.

As we were walking away, another guy came over and tapped me on the shoulder. He said his name was Christy Walsh and that he was “an associate of Mr. Ruth.” I recognized him as the guy who'd been sitting in the car next to Babe.

“Mr. Ruth saw what happened a few minutes ago,” Walsh said. “He felt bad and asked me to tell you to stop by his suite at the Ansonia Hotel tonight. He'll give you all the autographs you want.”

“We'll be there!” Dad exclaimed, pumping the guy's hand vigorously.

When Walsh disappeared into the crowd of faces on the street, Dad and I looked at each other and laughed.

“We're gonna meet Babe Ruth!” I said gleefully.

“And get all the autographs we want!” Dad said, just as happily. I don't think the two of us had shared a laugh since I was about six or seven years old.

THE ANSONIA HOTEL, WE FOUND OUT, WAS ON SEVENTY-FOURTH
Street. We were at Fourteenth Street. So we had to go sixty blocks to get to Babe Ruth's hotel. We started walking uptown.

Just around the corner from Union Square Park was a large building with four round columns in front of it. The sign on the front read:
NEW YORK SAVINGS AND LOAN
.

A line of people outside the front door of the bank stretched all the way down the street. It looked as if they were waiting for the bank to open. That was strange, Dad said, because it was already past closing time. He checked his money. If the bank was still open, he said, he'd deposit his five thousand dollars and let it earn interest for the next seventy years.

“I want my money!” a young guy yelled angrily as we got closer.

“Open the doors!” an old lady shouted.

“Give us back our money!” a group of people chanted. “Give us back our money!”

Dad pushed up to the front door and asked the young guy what was going on.

“They won't let us in,” he complained. “I want to take out my money.”

“Isn't it past closing time?” Dad asked.

“We want our money!” somebody yelled.

“Y'know,” Dad told the guy, “if you just leave that money in the bank and wait long enough, you'll eventually be rich.”

The people in the front of the line looked at Dad angrily and began shouting.

“Who asked you, pal?”

“What do you know, you idiot?”

“Mister, I don't have time to wait around,” the young guy told Dad. “I need money to buy dinner
tonight
. My kids are hungry now.”

“You look like
you
got plenty of dough, you with them fancy clothes,” a lady shouted at Dad. “How about sharing the wealth?”

“Yeah!”

I was afraid they were going to start beating up Dad or something and take his money. But suddenly the front door of the bank opened a crack. Everybody rushed to get back in line.

“Go home!” a voice called from inside. “This bank is officially closed.”

“Closed? Until when?” a lady wearing a tattered coat asked desperately.

“Until forever!” came the reply. The door slammed shut in her face.

The mob of people started pounding on the door. Four policemen mounted on horses arrived quickly, so Dad and I didn't stick around. Neither did most of the people in line. Nobody would be putting their money in or taking it out of that bank for a long time.

 

“That's only strike one,” Dad said as we walked up Fifth Avenue. “We're not out yet.”

“Don't we have to get to Chicago for Game Three, Dad?”

“Relax,” my father said. “They're not going to start the game without Babe Ruth, and he's still in New York.”

We passed Eighteenth Street, Twentieth Street, and Twenty-third Street, where we saw that famous building that looks like a big iron. Every so often Dad would tap a stranger on the shoulder and whisper something into the stranger's ear. Usually he would just shrug his shoulders.

“What are you doing, Dad?” I finally asked.

“Trying to find us a bookie,” he replied.

After getting five or six shrugs from people, Dad tapped a guy on the shoulder who nodded his head and pointed to a nearby store. The sign on the front said:
J. B. MILLER, HABERDASHER
.

“Is a haberdasher the same as a bookie?” I asked as I followed Dad to the doorway.

“No,” Dad replied. “Betting on baseball is ille
gal, so bookies set up regular businesses and take bets quietly, when the cops aren't looking.”

A haberdasher, I discovered as soon as we walked in the door, is a hat salesman. I had never even seen a hat store before, but it occurred to me that every man on the street in 1932 was wearing a hat. This place had hats all over the walls. Dad leaned over to the fat guy behind the counter.

“I need to speak with Ralphie,” Dad said.

“I sell hats,” the guy said. “Who sent you?”

“Mike sent me.”

“I'm Ralphie.”

“I want to place a bet on the World Series,” Dad said.

“I'm listening,” Ralphie replied.

“I want to put down five thousand bucks on the Yankees to win in four straight.”

Ralphie laughed. He laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach with one hand and wipe the tears rolling down his cheeks with the other.

“What's so funny?” Dad asked, annoyed. “You're a bookie, aren't you?”

“Buddy,” Ralphie said, “I wish I could take your bet. But nobody's betting on the Cubs. Everybody knows the Yanks are gonna mop the floor with them in Game Three and Game Four.”

“I'll give you good odds,” Dad said.

“It don't matter, mister. Nobody'll take your action.”

“I even know the final score of Games Three and Four.”

“Forget it, pal. Take my advice. Save your money and buy yourself a hat.”

We left the hat store and continued walking in the direction of Seventy-fourth Street and the Ansonia Hotel.

“Strike two,” Dad said, a little dejectedly.

“You're not out yet, Dad,” I said, trying to cheer him up. “Hey, why don't you bet on the presidential election? Franklin Roosevelt is going to win, isn't he?”

“That's not a bad idea, Butch,” Dad replied. “But then we'd have to hang around here until Election Day to collect our money. That's next month. I promised your mom I'd have you home within three days. Besides, I have one more idea that could make us a pile of money. This one is
sure
to work.”

“Dad, are you calling your shot?” I teased.

My dad struck a batting pose and pointed across the street the same way Babe Ruth supposedly pointed to the centerfield bleachers. The sign on the window said:
DAVIS SPORTING GOODS—BASEBALL EQUIPMENT. GOLF CLUBS. DUMBELLS
.

Dad must have realized he wasn't going to make a fortune by putting money in a bank for seventy years or by betting on the World Series. To be honest, they both sounded like crackpot ideas, once I took the time to think them through.

We walked across the street to the sporting goods store and went inside. It didn't look like any sporting goods store I'd ever seen. There were no
sneakers, treadmills, or roller hockey gear. They did have these things that looked like leather beach balls. When I went to pick one up, it was so heavy I couldn't lift it. Dad said it was called a “medicine ball,” and people exercised by throwing them at each other. It sounded like the dumbest thing in the world to me.

Dad marched up to the counter with a determined look on his face.

“Do you sell baseballs?” he asked.

“Certainly, sir,” the clerk replied.

“Good. I want to buy a hundred of your best baseballs.”

“A hundred, sir?” The clerk looked like Dad had just asked for a hundred fresh dinosaur eggs.

“That's right,” Dad repeated, “a hundred.”

The clerk looked flustered and said he'd have to check the stockroom.

“Looks like strike three, Dad,” I said.

“It ain't over till it's over,” he replied.

While the clerk scurried to the back of the store to see how many baseballs he could round up, Dad explained his strategy to me.

“A clean ball with Babe Ruth's signature on it is worth five thousand dollars in our time,” he told me. “The guy in the car with Ruth said Babe would give us as many autographs as we want.”

I figured it out in my head. A hundred baseballs at five thousand dollars each would earn Dad five hundred thousand dollars.
Half a million dollars!
Not a bad payday, especially for a guy who didn't have a job.

After a few minutes the clerk returned carrying a large canvas sack, sort of like a laundry bag.

“We only have seventy-five baseballs in stock,” he apologized. “They're one dollar apiece.” He opened the sack to show us it was filled with cardboard boxes, each one containing a dozen baseballs.

“I'll take 'em all,” Dad said, peeling bills out of his wallet. Some of the other employees in the store were staring. I did a quick mental calculation and figured out that those seventy-five balls, with Ruth's signature on them, would be worth $375,000. Dad paid the seventy-five dollars and led me out of the store.

“I think I just hit a grand slam, Butch,” Dad said cheerfully as we walked uptown. “Let's head for the Ansonia and turn these baseballs into cash.”