UNCLE MERL'S BAR & GRILL
GAME THREE:
Ruth Built It—He Can Knock It Down, Too
By
Peter "Lou" D'Alessio
Copyright 2010
“Boy! This is some swell park, ain’t it kid?”
I looked up at the sweating behemoth that had dropped down on the dugout bench next to me. He was staring at the field with the awe of a rookie.
“Sure is, Mr. Ruth.” I looked over at my runner. The young fellow carrying my releases to the press booth was goggle-eyeing the huge man, almost petrified to be in such close proximity to his greatness. Then the lad turned to me.
“He must be takin’ this one real serious, chief. I think he’s only half bombed! I guess he ain’t never seen Yankee Stadium from the visitor’s side!”
The giant roared with laughter that the youngster had bitten on the gag. “He…hey, kid! I’m Babe Ruth and I built this place!” he choked out as he wiped the water from his head on a towel. It was an unusually hot day for October.
Hell was up for the game! Old Lucifer had started the pep talk for this one with the rising of the moon. It was suspected that the goat entrails found on the base paths may have had something to do with the proceedings, but the Umpires, again, couldn’t prove it. There were shrieks and incantations and moans of all sorts coming from the home team dugout. Every so often there was a flash and the smell of sulfur around home plate.
As it happened in other games, our team began arriving in small clusters. It reminded me of the pick-up games I had played on the Newark sandlots in my ‘old days’. For an instant I felt alone and very out of place. It must have shown on my face.
“Cheer up, kiddo! I’ll hit one outa here for ya!”
I turned to the voice. A pie-shaped face faced mine. It was small-eyed, thick lipped and sweaty, but it was warm and friendly too and conveyed a child-like joy.
“Hullo, Babe!” another voice behind us boomed through the small bunker. It was strong and forceful and I jumped with the sound.
“Hullo, Lou. The kid here is worried we ain’t gonna give him nuttin’ to write about! Say! Ya think we kin fix that?”
He was tall and darkened by the sun and while the Bambino reminded me of a beer barrel with legs, there was no mistaking this man as anything but a great athlete. It was the Iron Horse, it was Gehrig himself. Behind him was Tony Lazzeri and outfielders Earl Combs and Bob Meusel. Murderer’s row, the greatest hitting machine Baseball had ever known, had arrived. In 1927, Meusel had batted .337 and smacked 107 runs across the plate. Lazzeri had driven in 102 and while he had only 18 home runs, a mere pittance to Gehrig’s 47 and Ruth’s awesome 60, it was still the third best total in the American League. Of course Gehrig had 164 RbIs to go with it. There were entire teams that hadn’t collected as many homers as either Gehrig or the Babe. In one season, they had collected more than 400 hits and scored 975 runs. The pitcher that was still inside me was cowering in the darkest corner of my soul.
“GEHRIG!” A welling voice belied the appearance of the petite graying man it came from. It was Miller Huggins, standing at the end of the runway, hands on his hips. “You’re benched! I wanna see that kid Foxx make Ruth look bad!” I, personally, wouldn’t have benched the Iron Horse, but while Lou had 47 homers, Fox did have 58!
“Aw Huggy, you ain’t gonna bust Lou’s record, are you?”
“Where the hell have you been for the last six decades, Ruth? Some kid named Ripkin, in Baltimore, did that already!”
Gehrig’s eyebrows rose in surprise but before he could say anything, Bill Klem, the home plate Umpire, hollered into the pit to get ready to play ball. The players began walking out to the sidelines for the National Anthem and Night on Bald Mountain.
I couldn’t imagine anything beating this team. I was mindful of Uncle Merl’s caution about pride, but there was something here that precluded victory. There was such an air of confidence with the ball players Huggins had picked, you could sense that losing was not part of the equation. It could be close, but they’d win. Lose? It wasn’t part of their religion, they just didn’t believe in it! As hot as it was on the field, it was shaping up to be a cold day in hell. When you looked at Huggy’s line-up, you knew he was getting ready to unleash the Dogs of War.
Huggins was so certain of the abilities of his batters and pitchers, he had loaded the infield with the best leather both leagues had to offer. You could see Huggy didn’t care much for Ruth as a person, but he knew damned well what would happen when the Sultan of Swat saw the horsehide flying at him. And putting Jimmy Fox behind him in the batting order was like smacking a beehive in Babe’s back pocket. I had never really considered anyone, except maybe Ted Williams, Hank Aaron or Roger Maris as being Babe’s equal, but here was Huggins sitting the great Lou Gehrig on the bench to open first base for Foxx.
This was going to be some show! I was starting to share Max’s confidence that playing the game was a formality. There was a tone to the capacity crowd that defied explanation. I couldn’t put a finger on what this feeling was until the Babe stepped on the field to be announced. He hadn’t hit a home run or caught a ball yet but his mere presence was enough to drive the crowd wild and they roared as lions till it shook the walls and rumbled through the artificial valley. Seventy-five years was only a drop in Merl’s bucket, but it had been too long and now the king had returned to his people and the House that Ruth Built trembled and quaked again with a joyous noise that rose to heaven. For one moment in time, there was more real magic in the Bambino’s Bat than in all the wands of all magicians of all time!
Huggins walked over to me with his line-up card still shaking his head. It was eye-popping, but there was one name I didn’t recognize.
“Hey, Huggy! Who’s this guy Chapman at shortstop?”
Huggins, who had already turned to shoo Combs to the batter’s box, paused but didn’t respond. He kept his eyes on the field. “Chapman’s okay. He’s a good infielder. Back in ’21, Mays beaned him real good and he died the next day. He’s the reason the Umps are always throwin’ clean baseballs out. So’s the batter can see’em comin’.” He hesitated and then looked over his shoulder at me. “A manager’s always tellin’ his boys ta give the game all they’ve got to give. Most never do—Chapman did! I figger we owe ’im one. Besides, the guys like ’im. I’ll keep ’im in a couple a’ innings, give him a turn at bat, worse comes to worse, I got that rookie Durocher from the Cardinals. Ruth calls ’im the ‘All-American Out’ and it may be the only thing the big ape’s been right about in the last ten years, but he can play short with the best. If I need a bat…” Huggins grinned the cockiest grin I’d ever seen. “I still got the ‘Rajah’ sittin’ on the bench. Hornsby wouldn’t know the difference between short stop and second base…” Miller dropped his chin and got really solemn looking, just like Brother McReedy got whenever he talked about Lou Gehrig. “But for now, I’ll give it to Chapman.”
He walked away and stood at the edge of the dugout, watching Combs swing some warm-up swings as he walked to the batter’s box.
“Miller Huggins has a heart! I’ll be damned!” I said to no one in particular.
“The boss is all heart, I’ll say he is! And if the Babe has his way, you won’t be damned for at least another three games,” a voice said laughingly behind me. At the far end of the bench the Iron Horse was looking over and smiling. Hell, the bastard was so damned perfect, he even had dimples!
Out on the mound, Kali was taking her warm-ups. A small host of players had gathered outside the batter’s circle to ogle in amazement as all four arms pin wheeled around in follow through. She was releasing a ball from each side and they traveled at the same speed, same height, same breaking motions… it was like having two pitchers on the mound to deal with. I really couldn’t fault old Lucifer for this one. If I had to face possibly the greatest hitters of all time, I probably want an ambidextrous pitcher, too.
Scarier yet was Ahriman. He was catching both balls at the same time; wearing an over-sized mitt he moved flawlessly, catching both balls cleanly. Huggins watched about five or six catches and looked over at the Babe—and there was trade all over his face!
Kali laid Combs, Chapman and Traynor down in order, but the bench had gotten up and had been ready to charge when Kali had tried to brush Chapman off, not once but twice, each pitch dangerously close to his head. If it had been meant to demoralize the troops in the field, it wasn’t working, but it didn’t seem to faze her in the least. By the third out, it was obvious that Hell was going to take a page out of the Oriole playbook and wage a campaign of bullying, rough-housing and out-right dirty tactics.
They too had come ready to play!
Unfortunately for them, they hadn’t come ready for Walter Johnson.
I had heard arguments for years over the true speed of Walter Johnson’s fastball. Some say Johnson was generally faster than the pitchers of his day so by comparison, he seemed like a rocket. However, if he was compared to the modern day pitchers with their highly technical training, limited innings pitched and improved medical care, he’d be middling at best. Had there been a radar gun in the late ‘20’s, the argument would have never reached the academic level.
Johnson threw his eight warm-up pitches very unimpressively, hitching his throwing arm to loosen it after every second or third pitch. It was when Basphomet stepped up to the plate that Johnson changed. His motion seemed to stiffen and he leaned hard into his follow through and it whipped the ball towards home with blinding speed. Basphomet was gone in three perfect pitches that were moving at speeds in the high 90s.
Johnson was working like a machine, sending pitches homeward nearly as quickly as Cocrane could get the ball back to him. The infield was going wild, hooting and shouting as the normally low-keyed Washingtonian blasted pitch after pitch at his opponents. It took him eleven pitches to retire the side. I jotted down on my notepad:
Washington—first in war, first in peace and last in the American League—except when the Senators have Walter Johnson pitching!
I was settling in for a great pitching duel, but it was not to be. Oh, Johnson would pitch a flawless nine innings. The humble star of the Washington Senators would pitch the only complete game of the series for either side, allowing only three hits and not allowing a runner off first base.
The fireworks really began at the top of the second!
Huggins had dropped Ruth to the clean up spot to accommodate the different stars on the rooster. The Sultan of Swat had begun to grow dark and sullen when Kali had elected to brush Chapman off with the first near-beaner, and the short stay in right field hadn’t cooled his temper. He had marched across the outfield straight to his favorite bat and directly to the batter’s box. He stood at the outer edge as Kali finished her warm-ups. Umpire Klem, at Satan’s urging, was about to say something, but the Babe shot him a look that had ‘stay-out-of-this’ written all over it.
As Babe dug in, I pondered the great mysteries of life. What is stronger, good or evil? Does power corrupt the honorable? If Kali plants one in the Babe’s ear, does Huggins send in Gehrig or does he try to talk Hornsby into playing right field too?
But Kali wasn’t about to plant one in the Bambino’s ear. The chance of striking out God’s Chosen Batter in the very temple he himself had built was too good to pass up on a hit batsman.
There was no real crouch to the Bambino’s stance. He stood nearly erect, feet apart, offering nearly a perfectly open strike zone to any pitcher foolish enough to throw at it. His bat circled above his left shoulder and his face was relaxed as he waited for Kali’s first burnt offering. Ruth knew the score all right. Those pitches at Chapman’s head had pissed him off and he stood there like an avenging angel over the powers of darkness.
There was electricity flowing through the stands now. Jimmy Foxx, who had moved into the on-deck circle, had laid his bats down. Gehrig, Lazzeri, and all of Murderers’ Row had risen from the benches and were creeping forward, sending that ever rising electrical charge throughout the bunker as the players from the other teams began to realize that there was something beyond baseball transpiring. The volume of the fans was increasing, and the skies darkened and lightening creased the horizon as Kali went into her wind up and Babe waited for the pitch.
It looked like a friggin’ Robert Redford movie!
The ball seemed to come out of nowhere, Kali’s four arms circling about her chest as she spun through her pitching motion. The ball left a vapor trail and slammed into Ahriman’s mitt like a racecar hitting a brick wall. The catcher grunted in agony.
“HHHEEE’RRRIIIKKKEEE!!!” Klem cried out.
The Babe tilted his head towards the Umpire. “Hell, Bill. I’ll take your word for it. It sounded a little low to me!” And then he turned his attention back to the mound.
The entire bench was alive now. Meusel and Combs had moved to the edge of the dugout. “C’mon, Babe, bust one!” screamed Combs.
Ruth’s head swung towards the voice. He winked and faced the mound again, his bat now motionless over his shoulder as it waited for the invading sphere.
But there were hoots and roars and shouts of all manners from Hell’s team, too. The ruckus was becoming a distracting din, but Babe never moved. And another screamer came at him.
I’ve read that the time that elapses from the instant the ball leaves the pitcher’s fingers until it crosses the plate is about half a second. In that split second, the batter must visually locate the ball, anticipate its travel towards the plate, determining if it’s high or low, inside or out, a ball or a strike—and then decide if he’s going to swing at it. This all had to happen in that one half of a second that Kali had cut again in half.
Yet somehow Ruth had done all that. He had weighed all the pluses and minuses and the great weaver’s beam he held over his shoulder whipped forward at a speed equal to that of the ball, and he tagged it on the sweet part of the bat cleanly. It was as a gunshot that filled Yankee Stadium. It echoed and resounded as if it were a heralding trumpet letting the faithful know that the King of Clout, the Sultan of Swat, the Great Bambino had returned to save them from the pit. He had shot the arrow of God into the sun, higher and higher it soared and, still rising, it crashed into the façade of the upper most deck and crushed, flatted on one side. It hung there for what seemed to be an eternity and then dropped harmlessly into the throng below.
The Stadium exploded as the Babe, wide-eyed, watched the ball disappear into the crowd. His face was still turned in that direction when the massive barrel chest, seemingly on reflex or perhaps habit, pulled around towards first base and he began to slowly trot the base path in that gait that was unmistakably Babe Ruth’s! As he began to move, Huggins hollered at Ahriman, “Tell your boss! Ruth built it—he can knock it down too!”
Foxx had left the on-deck circle and rushed to the plate. I watched him lean into Bill Klem to try and be heard over the welling cheers of the crowd. The Umpire was shrugging and while I could no longer hear what was being said, I knew what was going on. Foxx wanted to know where the pitch had gone, if it had been a ball or a strike, inside or out. Klem didn’t seem to be real sure but judging by his hand motions, it was probably a ball, low and outside. The Babe had reached for and gotten a bad pitch. Foxx patted Babe on his back as he stomped across the plate and, as the crowd still roared its approval of Ruth’s astonishing dinger, he dug in for the first pitch.
Kali was holding the ball, waiting for the crowd to quiet down. The Philadelphia Athletic began to paw the dirt in anticipation. When the first pitch came, it darted by like a beam of light for a strike. The second pitch, likewise. Then it began. Foxx backed out of the box and called time-out. He wiped the sweat from his hands by rubbing them on his back pockets. He looked over at Huggins who was still showing a ‘hit away’ sign. He nodded and stepped up to the plate.
Jimmy began fouling off ball after ball back into the stands, carefully protecting the strike zone. After six foul balls, he held his swing and Klem yelled, “BALL!” He fended off three more and checked his swing as the fourth traveled high and out. “BAW TWO!” called Klem, and Kali was getting shaken. She started shaking off Ahriman’s calls. She let go with a devastating offering that fell a little short. It hit the dirt in front of the plate and embedded itself about six inches deep. “Three baw, two strike. Full count on the batta!” cried the Ump. Then he called time-out as a spade was sought to dig the ball out. Ahriman went to the mound and Hell’s bullpen was up and throwing.
Foxx just stood there, waiting. He had forced the count full. Either Kali threw a strike or he walked. If it was a strike, he could hit it, but either way, he was going to get on base.
Meanwhile, back on the hill, Ahriman was climbing all over the goddess of destruction. For a guy with only two eyes, Foxx was seeing the ball pretty damned good! He warned her to cut out the silly shit, stop shaking off his signals and do this guy in! He slammed the ball back in her mitts and walked back to the plate, leaving her seething on the mound.
Ahriman crouched and then must’ve said something nasty to Foxx. He looked down at the catcher, and for a moment we thought Jimmy was going to take his bat and re-arrange the catcher’s face, right through the mask—but he settled down and waited for the pitch to come.
Jimmy Foxx had waited the pitcher out. She sent a letter-high fastball right down the middle. Anticipating the pitch perfectly, he swung with a savageness that matched anything Hell had to offer. The ball jumped into reverse with another sharp report that alerted Hell, the fans and his own team that Ruth wasn’t the only hitter to come today.
But unlike Babe’s shot, this ball didn’t rise much. Foxx’s bat had moved almost perfectly parallel to the ground and the ball seem to ride on a tight rope at a rocket’s pace, barely more than leaping height over the infield. Its level of ascent was so slight that for a moment it appeared that Baal Zeval could time a last second leap and pull it back in. In fact, the ball kissed the tip of the webbing of Zeval’s glove as it skipped into the stands. Foxx had collected the second four-bagger of the inning!
The explosion on the mound only outdid the roar of the crowd as the ground opened up under Kali’s feet and she was dragged back into the underworld.
“Well, I guess they’re changin’ pitchers!” Babe chuckled out. Huggins, who had been watching the fireworks display on the pitcher’s mound, glanced over his shoulder at the Bambino. Then he looked at me. “The big palooka’s right twice in the same day! No wonder Hell’s freezing over!”
“…Orbas was knocked off the mound in the seventh when Lazzeri was driven home by Meusel’s single to lef’…” Campy’s eyes pushed off the paper. “Da bums! I woulda gone wid da righty! Too many soud-pawz in dat line-up!” He raised the paper again. “Where wuz I? Oh! A single to lef’!” Max pushed the newspaper down again. “We’re up two games to one—we should be sweepin’ dese Bozos!”
“I wouldn’t go callin’ the rulers a’ the underworld Bozos, Campy. Things can turn on us in minutes…”
“Oh, yeah, Merl! In a minute!”
“Yes! We los’ the first game because a’ the vanity of one man and won the second because of the innocence of another. Babe’s contagious self-confidence and love of the game overwhelmed the powers of darkness, but ya gots ta remember, Babe was moved by the han’ a’ God on the field and was a product of the world off it. As his career faded, the world moved deeper into da’pression. Da Murderers Row a’ the twennys is one thing—da Gas House Gang a’ da thirdys is sompin else!”
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