To: BluesDuke
Here's the one that most amazes me for not being in either MLB's list or yours, Bluesy:
1932: Ruth Calls His Shot. During the 1932 World Series, in response to a bunch of bench jockeying by the Cubs, aging Yankee slugger Babe Ruth points out toward the right-centerfield bleachers at Wrigley Field . . . and then hits a home run to that spot!
Through the years, there has been some controversy over whether Ruth actually was "calling his shot" or if his gesture had some other meaning.
Also, as he was rounding the bases, Ruth was really giving it back to the Cubs' bench: "Atcha! Atcha!"
Or how about another Ruthian moment:
1935: Ruth Goes Out with a Bang! Fat, old, broken-down Babe Ruth, now playing with the lowly Boston Braves, summons up enough strength to blast three home runs in one game right at the tail end of his career.
Finally, one last moment from the most legendary and memorable player of them all:
1948: The Babe's Farewell. Dying of throat cancer, a gaunt, ashen, raspy-voiced George Herman Ruth bids a touching farewell to the fans at Yankee Stadium.
To: Charles Henrickson
In a way, I wasn't surprised to see nothing from Babe Ruth represented - because the man was just too damned big to isolate really, legitimately memorable single moments (Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner have the same problem, seemingly, and you can make a case that likewise applies to Walter Johnson). A lot of what one might deem the Bambino's memorables were in due course eclipsed by later men in various ways and places. Those can never take Ruth's place in the history of the game, but it is no insult to his memory to say that when the record is reviewed objectively, the Bambino's entire career was a more memorable moment than individual performances or appearances therein turned out to have been. That of itself is one hell of an achievement, if pondered the right way.
Consider: The "called shot". Never happened. Those who were there have said mostly that what Ruth was holding up was a finger signal indicating how many strikes were in the count. Ruth himself seems to have admitted he never actually called his shot but, since the story got around anyway and he was a big fat ham as it was, what harm was there in going along with the gag? (Both the Yankees and the Cubs were taking bench jockeying to new levels of constancy in that World Series.)
Consider, too: The final three homers. Would have been nice if he really did go out with a bang like that. Trouble is - it didn't happen in his actual final game. Reality bites, alas.
As for the Babe Ruth farewell, it was legitimately touching (anyone who has ever heard an uncut recording of the speech cannot say otherwise) - but it insults both Ruth and Lou Gehrig to compare it to Gehrig's farewell. Gehrig was a far younger facing death than Ruth was a decade later.
8 posted on
07/12/2002 11:07:28 PM PDT by
BluesDuke
To: Charles Henrickson
Though, speaking of Ty Cobb, you could make a case for this as an all-time memorable moment candidate...
1912: Four Apostrophes For Cobb Ty Cobb is suspended indefinitely after he storms into the stands to beat a heckler senseless. Tiger teammates protest the suspension and strike. Facing a heavy fine for failure to field a team, Tiger management rounds up a gang of sandlotters to face the Philadelphia Athletics. The A's pound the living whey out of the game sandlot fellows: 24-2, and when American League president Ban Johnson reduces Cobb's suspension to ten days, the Tiger regulars come back and spare the sandlotters further Eighth Amendment violations. Cobb's replacement in center field for that voluntary manslaughter is unknown to this day - because his surname was too long to appear in the box score in any way other than this: L'n'h's'r.
9 posted on
07/12/2002 11:14:27 PM PDT by
BluesDuke
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