Oh, That Swing
Fat and forty, Babe Ruth still had IT.
Sadly a free agent after the Yankees had given him his release after the 1934 season, Babe Ruth signed with the Boston Braves as player, assistant manager and vice president. The last two were a sham: Boston was only trying to beef up attendance by having the overweight, aging legend around. The Babe played a few games for Boston in April and May of 1935, thinking that if he hung on a bit longer he might be offered the manager’s job that he so desperately wanted.
It didn’t work. He appeared in only 28 games, batting .181. On May 30 he played in his final big-league game, batting in the first inning of game one of a twin bill. Later that day he called it quits.
Ruth spent the next 13 years of his life waiting for the call to become a manager, but it never came. The closest he got was a position as a coach with the Dodgers in 1938. But when the club’s managerial post opened the next year Leo Durocher got it, and Ruth wasn’t rehired.
Among the Babe’s 13 hits for the Braves were six home runs — three of them in an epic sendoff at Forbes Field five days earlier. On May 25 he went 4-for-4, and his last home run — one of the longest of his career — flew over the right-field roof of Forbes Field, the first time that had happened since the stadium opened in mid-1909. His first home run had come off Pirates starter Red Lucas, the last two off reliever Guy Bush, whom the Yankees had clobbered in the 1932 World Series and was now, like the Babe, on the skids.
Yesterday I spotted another home run that the Babe hit with the Braves — in an exhibition game against the Newark Bears of the International League, at Ruppert Stadium on April 7, 1935. The swing was still a thing of beauty, unique. Below are five frame captures, followed by the film itself; watch closely, beginning at the 43-seconds mark.
Ruth hit two homers that day, both solo shots. The first came off starter Frank Makosky, a knuckleballer. The second, struck on a 3–0 pitch and thus the mammoth drive likely to have been captured on film, came off Dartmouth’s Bob Miller and traveled 500 feet, landing in the street.
Lou Effrat of the New York Times reported:
“Miller wound up and attempted to slip a fast ball though the groove., but Ruth was waiting and ready. One short step and the familiar crash of bat meeting ball followed.
“The right fielder never had a chance. He whirled around, took two or three steps, and stopped in his tracks. The ball sailed over the heads of the bleacherites, clearing the farthest corner in right field by fifty feet and landing in the street behind the park. Veteran observers estimated the distance at 500 feet or better. It was the longest shot ever made at Ruppert Stadium.”
Ruth batted twice in that sixth inning, walking his second time up, then left the game for a pinch runner. Note from the box score above that the 18-run game was played in 2:08.
