day of the game and that we would surely get to meet The Babe.”
Johnny wasn’t much for volunteering for anything, as community service was definitely not in his nature.
“I don’t think so,” Johnny replied.
“You have to trust me on this,” I countered, “if we do this I promise you that we’ll get to meet the Babe.”
I had a hard time but finally convinced him that this was worth the effort and it would give us a chance to meet Babe Ruth in person.
“Mom, I think maybe Johnny and me could go to the Thursday night meetings and help plan for the big game,” I said as we walked home from church. “After all, Johnny and I know a lot about baseball.”
“I can’t believe that you want to go to our church meetings,” she replied. “And I certainly can’t picture Johnny Garrity going to a church meeting.”
“You know, there are never any kids at those meetings,” she added.
“Are there any rules against kids going to the meetings?” I asked.
“Well, I guess not, it’s just something that is never done.”
“If there is no rule against it then I think that we should be allowed to go,” I said in a convincing tone.
“Well, if it is OK with Reverend Casey, then it is alright with me,” she replied.
That Thursday night Johnny and I went to our first church meeting. For the opening hour, they talked about a hundred different things, none of which had anything to do with baseball.
“I’m gonna kill you,” Johnny whispered to me. “This is the most boring thing I ever did.”
“Don’t worry they’ll get to baseball soon,” I answered, praying that I was right.
Finally an hour and a half into the meeting Reverend Casey brought up the charity baseball game.
“Even though Babe Ruth has agreed to play in the game there still may be a problem,” he said.
“The only time that the Yankees are coming back to Philadelphia this season is in early September. They are going to play a doubleheader against the Athletics on September 3rd, so that wouldn’t be a good day to schedule the game. In addition, on September 4th the Yankee game is not scheduled to start until 3:15 in the afternoon and by the time it ends it might be too late to get him to our field to get the game in before dark. Even though it seems like a very risky proposition I think that is the only time we could squeeze the game in,” he finished.
“We would be taking a terrible chance,” said Mrs. Garrity. “What if we sell a lot of tickets and all these people come to see Babe Ruth and he doesn’t show up.”
“Yea, if the Yankee game runs long it will be too dark to play your game anyway.” Mrs. O’Brien chimed in. “If it gets dark before you play the game you might have a riot on your hands.”
“If the Yankee game is staring so late, there’s a good chance that Ruth will get here too late,” Mrs. Garrity added.
Reverend Casey listened carefully as each person spoke. You could see him wrestling in his own mind, trying to make a very tough decision. Finally, after everyone had an opportunity to give his or her opinion Reverend Casey made his final decision.
“I think this is meant to be and somehow the Good Lord will make it work out. We will schedule the game for 6 o’clock on September the Fourth. We should all pray very hard that the Yankee game will be short that day. The Yankee game should be over by 5:30 and we will have an automobile waiting to rush Mr. Ruth to our field as soon as the game ends. He should be able to get there by six and the game could begin right away,” Reverend Casey said sounding confident.
Never mind the thought of a rain delay or any other consideration of all the other things that could go wrong. When Reverend Casey spoke with as much passion and commitment in his voice as he did then, everyone in the congregation always fell into line. As the meeting continued there was no more talk of what could go wrong, there was only talk of all the preparations that would make sure that everything would go right.
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Each Thursday night Johnny and I would waltz our way through the same old scene.
“There is no way I’m going to that stupid meeting tonight,” he would say. “It gets more boring every week.”
“We gotta go. It’s the only way we can make sure we will get to meet the Babe,” I would reply.
It was a ritualistic dance routine that we worked our way through. Deep down inside Johnny wanted to get to meet Babe Ruth just as much as I did. Even though he hated going to the meetings, we both knew that meeting Ruth was going change our lives forever. Seeing and laying hands on him was going to transform our dull and stark existence and bring a touch of light to our darkness.
We went through the motions of sitting through the long discussions over the sales of ticket and refreshments. The endless talks about all the other ways that even more money could be raised at the game.
“We better make sure that the Philadelphia Police Department has a lot of officers there,” Mrs. Scanlon said. “We need to make certain that mobs of people aren’t able to run on the field and get to Mr. Ruth.”
“How many people do you expect that we’ll have?” Mrs. Scanlon asked Reverend Casey.
“That’s the hard part Mrs. Scanlon,” Reverend Casey started, “we may have hundreds and we may have thousands, I just don’t know.”
“What if the Yankee game does run long and we have a riot. We’ll really need the police then,” Mrs. O’Brien said in a concerned tone.
Reverend Casey did not say a word, but he looked over at Mrs. O’Brien with an unsympathetic expression and the meeting moved on.
By the time the end of August came around the plans were all set. We went to the very last meeting on Thursday August 30th, just five days before the game. Johnny and I had gone to all these meetings and I still was not sure if we had made any progress in our quest to meet the Babe.
“I think you wasted a lot of my time by making me come to these damn meetings,” Johnny said before the last meeting. “We’re still going to be standing in the crowd and watching the game from the sidelines just like everybody else.”
Reverend Casey had given out all the assignments, but they were for most mundane tasks. He appointed men to collect tickets, women who would sell pies and drinks, and the driver who would drive the borrowed automobile to Shibe Park to pick Ruth up.
As the meeting was winding down, Reverend Casey looked over at Johnny and me and said, “What can we get you boys to do?” He continued, “Maybe you can come with us when we go to pick up Mr. Ruth, and help carry his equipment. You might also work as the batboys and keep the equipment in good order for the players. Would that be OK?”
Everything was falling into place, and this was even more than I had dreamed. Johnny and I looked at each other and smiled. We both shook our heads yes and bolted out of the church thrilled. We ran home as fast as we could, skipping along the way.
“I can’t wait to tell my mom what we’re going to get to do,” Johnny said as he ran into his house.
Just then, I realized that we had run out so fast that I had left my mom at the church. We always walked home together after the meeting and I could not believe that I had left her to walk home all alone.
So I raced all the way back to the church feeling more than a bit nervous at being on the streets alone this late after dark. I figured that I would run into to my mother somewhere on the path home, but when I got back to the church, she was standing alone on the steps waiting for me.
“Where did you go?” she asked.
I was glad that I went back, who knows how long she would have stood out there waiting for me. The walk home was much slower the second time, but the streets did not seem as scary. Everything always seemed safe when I was with my mom.
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I was glad we only had a few days of anticipation left before the game. I really did not care about school starting in a few days; all I thought about was the game and meeting the Babe. Johnny and I spent some time in our clubhouse, but we seemed to enjoy it less and le
ss each time. We had had so much free time during the summer that we had done too much of everything, and found ourselves sitting around and starring at each other. In some ways, I was almost glad that school was starting; it made us appreciate our free time that much more.
On Monday September 3rd the Yankees arrived in town. Babe Ruth was having an incredible season. He was hitting .390, and led the American League in home runs with 32. The Athletics were in seventh place and it was no surprise that the Yankees swept the opening day doubleheader on Monday.
We listened to the games on the radio as we sat out on our front porch. The first game was tied, and went into extra innings.
“With the game still tied at one we’re going to the top of the thirteenth,” Bill Cullen the radio announcer said.
With a runner on second and two outs, Babe Ruth came to the plate.
“This is a good opportunity for Ruth to drive in the go ahead run for the Yankees,” said the announcer. “Here’s the pitch, and Ruth swings and hits a line drive in the gap between the center and right fielders. The go ahead run crosses the plate and Ruth ends up on second with a double.”
That ended up being the winning run as the Yankees held on to win the game by the score of two to one. In the second game, the Yankees scored three runs in the eighth inning to win seven to four. It was a great Labor Day for the Yankees. Connie Mack the beloved manager of the Philadelphia Athletics had to suffer through another tough afternoon with his team.
As I listened to
Me, Johnny, and The Babe Page 18
