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“Me and kids get along just fine!”

I’ve always loved the above line, once uttered by the great Bambino, George Herman “Babe” Ruth. Okay, maybe it wasn’t proper King’s English, but his feelings came through loud and clear. Babe genuinely loved kids. And the feeling was reciprocated…they loved him right back. He had his faults, like we all do. But when it came to young fans, there was nothing fake about it.  He’d do anything to make a kid happy. And so today we welcome back Andrew Sharp with an interesting essay that proves the point. Andy describes the Babe’s last game in a Yankee uniform. He also mentions a game in 1924 when the Babe went out cold. Our resident baseball artist, Don Stokes has done a beautiful colorization of the incident, which I’ve selected as the featured photo. I think you’ll enjoy what Andy shares with us today.

The Babe Comes Through For a Kid Again!

Babe Ruth played his last two games in a Yankees’ uniform on September 29 and 30, 1934, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. His homer in the first game of a doubleheader on September 29, a three-run shot, was the last he hit as a Yankee. Ruth hit 34 home runs in Washington, the fewest he hit at any of the seven other American League away ballparks he played in, no surprise given the depths of the fences at Griffith Stadium. His favorite ballpark for away homers was Shibe Park in Philadelphia, where he hit 68.

On May 7, 1921, he connected for what for years was considered the longest homer ever hit in D.C. It came off Walter Johnson, no less. Ruth went deep against the Big Train 10 times in his career. Before he started hitting home runs off everybody, Ruth, the pitcher, beat Johnson in a 13-inning, 1-0, game on August 15, 1916. Both Ruth and Johnson went the distance.  On June 28, 1918, in Washington, Ruth’s seventh-inning homer was the only hit off Nats starter Harry Harper. Two days later, Ruth’s two-run homer in the 10th beat Johnson and the Nats, 3-1. Ruth was playing center field for the Red Sox in both those games. A famous photo from a game on July 5, 1924, shows Ruth unconscious on the ground near the concrete wall down Griffith Stadium’s right field line.  The Bambino crashed into the wall tracking a fly ball off the bat of Joe Judge. Ruth was out for about five minutes until the Yankees trainer revived him by pouring cold water on his head. Looking on over the wall at the scene below the right-field pavilion were several black fans. Clark Griffith set aside this segregated seating for them, at a time when most major league stadiums were not segregated. Ruth, by the way, stayed in the game. In that September 29, 1934, game, his playing days almost over, Ruth hit a foul ball to right that glanced off the arm of a young fan. After he drew a walk, Ruth motioned the bench to put in a pinch runner. According to a story in the next day’s Washington Post,

“Ruth started out for the kid his foul had hit. On the way. the Babe called for a baseball from an umpire. He reached the stands and looked down at the kid and the kid looked up at him. He autographed the ball and gave it to the lad and also put his autograph in the boy’s book…. The 5,000 (fans) cheered again – not the Babe this time, but his big heart…

That’s why he is the “Mighty Man of Baseball.” Andrew Sharp  Andrew Sharp is SABR member and a longtime Washington baseball fan. Check out his website: washingtonbaseballhistory.com Subscribe to our website, Baseball History Comes Alive with over 1400 fully categorized baseball essays and photo galleries, now surpassing the one million hits mark with 1,159,000 hits and over 950 subscribers: https://wp.me/P7a04E-2he