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  Babe Herman Photo Gallery

Cubs’ Base-Running Gaffe Recalls the Dodgers’ Babe Herman:

The Only Major Leaguer To Double Into a Double Play!

As a matter of fact, he came very close to tripling into a triple play! I’ll explain all this later. So read on…

The Cubs’ bizarre spring training triple play the other day brought to mind another equally bizarre base-running gaffe made by the Dodgers’ Babe Herman on August 26, 1926, one hundred years ago this summer. 

Thankfully It’s Only Spring Training…

In the first inning of a game against the Giants in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Cubs had Matt Shaw and Alex Bregman on first and second when Seiya Suzuki hit a bloop single into shallow right field. That’s when the chaos began.

Without going into too much detail, Suzuki was thrown out trying to reach second on the play for the first out. Shaw had stopped rounding third and returned to the bag; but Bregman, with his head down, kept running and also ended up on third. As the trailing runner, he was tagged out by shortstop Willy Adames for the second out. Adames then slyly handed the ball to third baseman Matt Chapman. Shaw, also not paying attention, momentarily stepped off the base…and was promptly tagged out by Chapman for the third out!

Oh well, it’s just spring training and gaffes like this can happen. All involved, I’m sure, had a good chuckle, and it was soon filed away, dismissed, according to the Chicago Sun-Times,  as a spring training “learning experience.”

It’s Worse When It Happens During the Season!

However, the equally bizarre base-running gaffe by the Dodgers’ Babe Herman – who I always refer to as “the Other Babe” –  occurred during the regular season, and so it was much more consequential. It was so egregious that it’s responsible for one of baseball’s oldest jokes:

First Dodger fan: “The Dodgers have three men on base!”
Second Dodger fan: “Oh yeah?…Which base?”

First, A Few Words About One of Baseball’s Great Characters

Dubbed “The Headless Horseman of Ebbets Field” by Dazzy Vance for his various base-running misadventures, Herman was not immune to mental lapses on the field. He was also one of the great power hitters of the 1930s. The 6’4”, 190-lb. first baseman/outfielder was a quintessential good-hit, no-field ball player. Over his 13-season major league career (1926-’37, 1945), Babe hit for a .324 career average, with 1818 hits, 181 home runs, 997 RBIs, a .383 on-base percentage, and a .532 career slugging average (fourth in the National League when he retired). His career 141 OPS+ placed him well above average among his contemporaries.

His best year was 1930, baseball’s greatest offensive year, when he posted a .393 batting average, with 241 hits, 143 runs, a phenomenal .678 slugging average, and 416 total bases. These marks all remain Dodgers franchise records. He also set team records (since broken) that year with 35 home runs and 130 RBIs. Other career highlights include hitting for the cycle three times (one of only three players to do so).  On July 10, 1935, Herman hit the first home run in a major league night game. Much like Fred Merkle, Babe Herman is often remembered for a single bizarre incident. Here’s what happened:

Like the Cubs’ Bregman, Babe Running With His Head Down!

The bizarre incident occurred in the seventh inning of a game on August 15, 1926, between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field. With one out and the bases loaded. Herman tried to stretch a double he hit off the right field wall into a triple. Chick Fewster, who had been on first base, advanced to third base. However, the bag was already occupied by Dazzy Vance, who had started on second base and had rounded third. But after he became caught in a rundown between third and home, he was now perched safely back on third.

Herman wasn’t watching the play in front of him and kept running, and so all three men ended up on third base! Braves’ third baseman Eddie Taylor tagged out all three. Vance was the lead runner and not forced to advance, so he was entitled to third base. Umpire Beans Reardon called Herman and Fewster out. Credited with a double, Babe had doubled into a double play, and had nearly tripled into a triple play!

Hank DeBerry, who started on third, scored the game’s winning run, and so Herman later sarcastically remarked: “No one remembers that I drove in the winning run on that play!”

A Few Anecdotes About Babe Herman:

• Fresco Thompson, a 1931 teammate, made this observation about Herman’s iron hands: “He wore a glove for only one reason: because it was a league custom.”
• When informed by a local bank that someone had been impersonating him and cashing bad checks, Herman said, “Hit him a few fly balls. If he catches any, it ain’t me.”
• His style of play, along with that of the entire team, led to Brooklyn being dubbed “The Daffiness Boys.”
• On two occasions in 1930, Herman stopped to watch a home run while running the bases and was passed by the hitter, in each case causing the home run to count only as a single.
• In 1930, he was once thrown out trying to steal second against the Cardinals’ 48-year-old catcher Gabby Street, who was an emergency substitute, appearing in his first game since 1912.
• Once, to the shock of writer Frank Graham, Herman pulled a half-smoked cigar out of his pocket. What shocked Graham was that the cigar in his pocket was already lit!

Maybe Babe wasn’t exactly the brightest light bulb in the room, but he was a great slugger and one of baseball’s most memorable characters. So today, we’re happy to shine our baseball spotlight on him. 

Gary Livacari

Photo Credits: All from Google search

Information: Excerpts edited from the Babe Herman Wikipedia page; and from the book: Baseball’s Eccentrics, by Bill Lee and Jim Prime: Cub information from Chicago Sun-Times, February 23, 2026

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