The Selling of the Babe (14 page)

Meanwhile the Red Sox weren't getting much off Tyler, either. Ruth grounded out in his first at bat, but in the fourth, first Shean and then—there's that name again—George Whiteman walked. Ruth came up with two outs. Mitchell got nervous and had Claude Hendrix start to warm up, but it was only a ruse. He had no plans to bring the righty in against Ruth.

In a similar situation today, Ruth would probably have been walked. The man hitting behind him, shortstop Everett Scott, was a singles hitter. But this wasn't the Ruth of the headlines and hyperbole. That guy had been gone for more than a month. Mitchell had Tyler pitch to him.

As Ruth held the bat, fans behind the screen could see him gingerly wrap his yellow finger around the handle. Had Ruth been a traditional batsman who pushed at the ball as much as he swung, the hand would have been a real bother. But Ruth didn't swing that way. In his style of hitting, the back hand, the top hand, did little more than help guide the bat and keep it on course; the front hand, the bottom hand, the only one that really needed to grip the bat tightly, provided the power.

Reports vary, but according to Shannon, Tyler pitched carefully and missed wide with his first two throws, then traded strikes and balls until the count was full.

The runners took off as Tyler wound and threw a fastball. This time Ruth connected, his right hand sweeping the bat through the ball. As Shannon wrote, “a report like a rifle shot rang through the park.”

The ball rose on a line just to the right of center field, where outfielder Max Flack turned and started running. It was a long drive, but although the deepest part of center field, where the flagpole stood, was over 480 feet from the plate, in front of the bleachers the distance was much shorter and the stands were not located quite where they are at present.

Today, Ruth's hit, which likely traveled only about 370 or 380 feet in the air, would probably be gathered up by an outfielder and draw no comment. But even though most outfielders played Ruth deeper than they played other players, they still often underestimated his strength; an extraordinary number of his long hits in his first year or two as a hitter didn't split the outfielders, as is often the case, but simply sailed over their heads, catchable had they only been playing deeper. Then again, Ruth was like a teenager batting against ten-year-olds.

So it was again. Flack was reportedly still 50 feet short of the stands when the ball cleared his head, took a bounce, and struck the fence to the right field side of the center field bleachers. Even so, the hit probably should have been scored only a double; a sloppy relay got past the Cub third baseman and as Shannon put it had to be “rescued” near the Cub dugout as Ruth chugged into third.

No matter, Boston fans were on their feet as McInnis and Whiteman scored. Ruth had a triple. The Red Sox led 2–0.

Over time, the drive would be celebrated out of proportion. It would be Ruth's last big hit in the postseason for the Red Sox, in a game in which he set a pitching record, in a World Series that would be Boston's last world championship for another eighty-six seasons. It also stood out because during the Dead Ball Era few World Series games had ever been decided by a long hit. More often, some error, catch, or act of daring had made the difference. But this was Ruth, and anytime his name was attached to anything, no matter how mundane, it became glorious. So it is with gods among men.

On the mound, his yellow finger standing out on the side of the baseball, Ruth soon started to fade. With each passing inning his control wavered, and only a fine fielding day by Everett Scott, who figured in three double plays and fielded 11 chances without an error, kept the Cubs at bay. In Ruth's next at bat, as he clung to the lead, with a man on, Barrow had him sacrifice, a measure of just how much confidence the manager had in Ruth and just how committed he remained to scientific baseball. Ruth continued to hold the Cubs scoreless, but wobbled and staggered as if he was lurching through the train chasing after straw hats.

It came apart fast. In the eighth, he gave up a walk and then Claude Hendrix, pinch-hitting for Tyler, singled. Ruth next threw a wild pitch, moving both men along.

They stayed there on a ground ball to first, as the infield played close, but the next batter hit a ground ball to second to score one, and then Ruth gave up a single to Leslie Mann to tie the score 2–2.

It didn't gain much attention at the time, but the runs were the first scored off Ruth in 29 innings of World Series pitching. After not pitching in the 1915 Series (in Ruth's three Series in Boston, he appeared in fewer than half the contests), in 1916 after giving up a first inning run he had thrown 14 shutout innings against Brooklyn in his only pitching appearance and in 1918 he had already thrown a shutout against the Cubs. The performance set a new record of 29 innings (since broken by Whitey Ford with 29 ⅔ innings), breaking Christy Mathewson's existing mark of 28. It was significant, but not as impressive as it would later seem over the years, when the lively ball made such a record even harder to achieve.

The game ended quickly. Shufflin' Phil Douglas came on in relief for the Cubs, gave up a single, and when Hooper bunted toward third, Douglas picked up the ball and threw it over the first baseman's head. It bounded off the stands down the line and Wally Schang raced home with the run that gave Boston a 3–2 lead.

Ruth tried to finish, but he was done. After giving up a single and a walk to start the inning, Barrow called on Joe Bush. With a man on second, he sent Ruth to left—Whiteman was a better fielder, but Ruth had the better arm and had a better chance of cutting down a runner at the plate. Bush only threw a handful of pitches—after a sacrifice, a ground ball to Scott started a game-ending double play, and Boston won, taking a 3–1 lead in the Series.

After Ruth's relative silence for the past month, his performance—in particular his hit—was praised all out of proportion. Virtually every headline sang his praises and heralded his triumph … with little mention made of the fact that his hijinks aboard the train had nearly cost his team a chance to win and had still likely adversely affected his performance. His mighty bat healed nearly all wounds. That was Ruth, and, increasingly, the way the press treated him; they needed him, baseball needed him, to sell papers and put rear ends in the seats.

Anointing anyone else a hero of the game would not have accomplished that. Shannon's breathless account began “big Babe Ruth's mighty bat wrote another page in the annals of World Series championships yesterday” and went on from there. He didn't mention another Boston player until eleven paragraphs into the story, another 600 words. With a single hit, Ruth got more ink than any other Boston player had the whole Series.

But all was not well. The players—at least the players not named Ruth—had not forgotten their issues with the National Commission. While most accepted an invitation to attend a play that night, likely secured by Frazee, Hooper and Everett Scott of the Red Sox and Mann and Killefer of the Cubs went to the Copley Plaza looking once again for the three commissioners. They should have gone to the theater. Reports vary, but after what might have been a brief meeting, Johnson, Heydler, and Hermann gave them the dodge, again falling back on the argument that they were just lowly employees of the owners and powerless to act without their direction. Afterward, they probably went to the play. They certainly went to the bar. The four players waited for them until after midnight and then gave up.

It was almost comical, a kind of vaudeville act played out in real life. The commission figured that if they just kept giving the players the runaround, in another day or two the Series would be over and the question would become moot. After all, what could the players do? Go on strike? To the National Commission, the notion was absurd. Players were employees who did what they were told. Period. Attempts to unionize or take any kind of collective action had usually died on the vine. Ruth's “me first” attitude was the rule, not the exception.

This time, however, the commission underestimated the players' resolve. The players' delegation returned to the hotel the following morning, but was put off once again. This time the commission told them they could meet after the game.

After the game? If Boston won, the Series would be over. Good luck finding the National Commission then. With that, Johnson and company retired to the Copley Plaza bar to celebrate breakfast and fuel up for the game. With a scheduled 2:00 p.m. start, that only left four or five hours for libations.

The players took a more sober view. By noon, most of them were at the ballpark and as the rest trickled in, each man soon learned what was going on and began to discuss the matter. A consensus soon emerged. If the commission would not even meet with them, much less meet their demands, well, the answer was simple; they would not play. It was not as if it was going to cost them very much.

As far as it can be determined, the players were united—or at worst, indifferent and willing to go along with the consensus of their teammates. No one openly sided with the commissioners.

The gates at Fenway opened a short time later and a good walk-up crowd turned out, hoping to catch the Red Sox win the world championship. They slowly began filling the stands, expecting to see the players sauntering out, taking batting practice and shagging flies. Instead, all they saw was an empty diamond, as if the off-season had already begun. Before long, word spread that something was happening and that the players were on strike. The long line outside soon scattered, while inside the park the mood turned ugly. If there was no ballgame to cheer, there was still plenty to make noise about.

Just before 1:00 p.m., word reached Johnson and the other commissioners in the hotel bar that the players weren't on the field and didn't plan to leave the locker room. The commission was so concerned it took them more than an hour to get to the park. They could have walked faster, but they could barely stand.

At 2:35 p.m., they stumbled and bumbled into the Boston dressing room, where Ruth and his teammates were still sitting around in street clothes as a clutch of sportswriters stood by eager to see the show. Johnson spoke first, blurting out to no one in particular that “if they concede anything to those—pups, I'm through with baseball,” although the report in the
Boston American
made it clear he didn't really refer to the ballplayers as “pups.”

The players' delegation, led by Hooper, and the commission, accompanied by a few sportswriters, retired to the umpires' room for a little privacy. Herrmann immediately launched into a soliloquy about how much he had done for the game and Johnson soon chimed in as well.

The players were incredulous. Both men were stone-cold drunk. “I made it possible Harry,” Johnson blubbered over and over into Hooper's ear, nearly in tears. “I had the stamp of approval put on this series, Harry, I did it, I did it…”

Anytime the players tried to speak, the commissioners simply responded with more blather, ignoring them even when Hooper said the players would donate all their Series money to war charity, if only the old rules remained in place. It was a matter of principle, he tried to explain, not greed.

But the commission's ear was not just deaf to the players' pleas, they were so drunk they couldn't even hear them over their own blubbering. Herrmann blurted out “Let's arbitrary this matter” and then started talking again. Hooper and the others realized their threat was futile. If they didn't play, they'd be blamed. Hooper looked over at the group of reporters who watched, barely able to contain themselves, and said with disgust, “It is apparent we have no one to talk to.” He and Mann reported to their clubs that the commissioners were too drunk to talk. The players said the hell with it and decided to play anyway. Mann and Hooper returned to the umpires' room, and after extracting a promise from Johnson that they'd face no punitive actions for the delay, they agreed to take the field.

While the players dressed, Boston mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald took command of a megaphone in the stands and announced that the players “have agreed to play for the sake of the public and the wounded soldiers in the stands.”

The crowd responded with a resounding chorus of boos. They'd been resentful of the players all year and now, begrudging the fact that the players were trying to wrap the flag around their decision to play, finally had a chance to vent. When the teams trotted out to the field, they were jeered as calls of “Bolsheveki” and “slackers” echoed over the diamond, as well as, J. C. O'Leary noted in the
Globe
, “a lot of other names that would not look nice in print.”

Through it all, Ed Barrow stuck to his plan. Whiteman played left and batted fourth. As the left-handed Hippo Vaughn made his second start of the series for the Cubs, Ruth sat on the bench. The only time he left it was to coach first base when the Red Sox came to bat.

The Sox managed only five hits as Vaughn shut them out. Meanwhile, his Cub teammates touched Sam Jones for three runs, and would have had more had not George Whiteman continued to play out of his mind and make several more outstanding catches.

The paper the next morning told the story, and although most of the local reportage in regard to the strike was evenhanded, the national press sided with Johnson. The fans weren't in the mood for sympathy, and most backed the commission. In the
Boston Post
, Arthur Duffey summed up the dismay with the game almost everyone was feeling, writing “baseball is dead … killed by the greed of owners and players … the wrangling of the players and magnates yesterday over the spoils furnishes a disgusting spectacle … the game just reeks with scandal after scandal.”

There was a lot of nodding in agreement over morning coffee and little wonder then that the next day only 15,000 fans turned out at Fenway Park for Game 6, most believing they were witnessing that last major league game that would be played in a long time. It was clear that as long as there was war, there would be no baseball, and no one was making plans for 1919.