Me, Johnny, and The Babe

by Mark Wirtshafter

pitchers. He wore a camel’s hair coat and held a cap by his side. Even with a good tan, he had gotten by spending weeks in Florida, trying to recuperate; his appearance was shocking to those that knew him for so long.

  At first, he seemed overcome with emotion, and unable to speak. It appeared as though he was about to cry when a coughing fit seemed to come over him. He took a second and composed himself, and began to speak. He had no notes or any prepared speech in writing as he approached the microphones. At the first spoken word that came from Ruth’s lips it was obvious that he was a very ill man. The pain which speaking caused him could be felt by every soul in Yankee stadium. You could sense the severity of the pain in his voice so acutely that I prayed for his speech to be short.

  “Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. You know how bad my voice sounds; well it hurts just as bad. You know this game of ours comes up from the youth, that means the boys. And after you’ve been a boy and grow up to know how to play ball, then you come to the boys you see representing themselves today in our national pastime. The only real game in the world, I think is baseball. As a rule, some people think if you give them a football or a baseball or something like that, naturally they’re athletes right away. But you can’t do that in baseball. You gotta start from way down in the bottom, when you’re six or seven years of age. You can’t wait until you’re fifteen or sixteen. You’ve gotta let it grow up with you. And if you’re successful and you try hard enough, you’re bound to come out on top, just like these boys that have come to the top now. There’s been so many lovely things said about me, I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to thank everybody. Thank you.”

  And with that, I watched him walk back to the dugout where he went into an uncontrollable fit of coughing. I could not help but think back to the speech that Lou Gehrig had given eight years earlier. A speech that I had heard replayed dozens of times. I thought back to how Ruth had put his arm around the dying Gehrig and made his teammate laugh. I could not help but think how much better Gehrig looked on that day than Ruth looked now. A deep sadness overcame me, the realization that Babe Ruth was not going to recover. He was not going to get better from whatever illness had overtaken him. I was watching a doomed man taking what may be his last walk in the sunshine. It might be the last time that this “priest” might lead his loving congregation.

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  Babe’s speech that day will not be long remembered for its content. It was not nearly as compelling as the speech that Gehrig had given in the same ballpark. Nevertheless, clearly it gave every person who heard it an insight into the struggle that Ruth was facing, and left us all with the understanding that this was a battle he would not win.

  As soon as Ruth left the field, I turned to Johnny to see his reaction. I watched his eyes follow Ruth as he left the field, and walk back to the dugout. I watched him stand with the crowd as they cheered for the Babe as he moved across the field. When he sat back down in his seat a reserved smile came to his face, it was a sad smile just the same.

  “Why didn’t you get in contact with me before now? What have you been doing all these years? I thought you were dead.”

  “I was pretty embarrassed by the life I was leading and really wasn’t anxious for anybody to see me like this,” he replied.

  “Have you been in touch with anybody in your family?” I asked. “Do they even know that you are still alive?”

  At that minute it struck me, I probably should have contacted Johnny’s family when I had gotten the telegram, but had not thought about that until now.

  “I haven’t talked to anyone in my family since I ran away from home. I guess they do not know if I’m dead or alive and I don’t know if I want you tellin’ ‘em.”

  After that, Johnny would only respond with the vaguest of answers to my many questions, and would use as few words as possible. It was like pulling teeth to get him to say even one full sentence. I could not believe that this was the same person, who I used to have hour-long conversations. All those hours spent in the clubhouse talking about our dreams for the future, and now it was as though we had nothing to say to each other.

  “Where do you live? I asked. “And what do you do to make money?”

  “Not far from here, and I do what I can to make a buck.”

  There was so much that I wanted to know, and so much that I wanted to say, but I had to make do with small talk about baseball and about the game, we were watching. The Yankees were playing the Washington Senators that day. The Senators actually won the game 1-0, and Ruth stayed in the stadium and watched the first eight innings of the game.

  There were a few times during the game that Johnny seemed to loosen up. Whenever I would bring up one of the stories of the gang we grew up with in Kensington he would seem to reach back in his memory to a happier time and smile.

  “Remember all the times we used to play down by the railroad tracks, and how about the time we went fishing in Pennypack Park,” I said. “We were pretty dumb, trying to catch fish with all that crazy stuff as bait.”

  I tried to remind him of some of the great adventures we had together growing up. He would seem to reach back in his mind to what now seemed like the wonderful time of our youth.

  Even though I was doing almost all the talking, it finally seemed like Johnny was letting himself think about better things and better times. I tried hard to remind him of every great time we had as kids, and was extremely careful not to bring up any of the bad times.

  “We really did have a lot of fun together growing up, didn’t we?” I asked.

  “Thinking back on it, I guess it wasn’t so bad.”

  I wanted to remind him that he once had a pretty good life, and just maybe he would believe that he could again.

  I never actually saw Ruth as he left the stadium that day, but I know he was gone by the time the ninth inning ended. The victorious Senators marched off the field, and the dejected Yankees slowly left their dugout after their last out. The game ended with not a bang, but a whimper, as Ruth’s exodus went unnoticed by the crowd.

  By now, I had retold every great story from our youth, and was exhausted from holding up the entire conversation for nine innings. The game was over the crowd was thinning out. A few stragglers were walking towards the exits. Johnny and I sat in our seats, starring at the empty field in front of us, as if we had no place in the world to go. Everyone else appeared to have somewhere to go, but Johnny and I were nowhere, with nowhere left to go.

  Ten minutes oozed by, the stands had completely emptied. The groundskeepers were out, putting the field back in order. As I looked around Yankee Stadium, we were the only two people still sitting in our seats. I knew it was time to leave, but I did not know what to say to Johnny. He showed no sign of wanting to leave, but he wasn’t saying anything either. It was becoming very uncomfortable, as if there was something he wanted from me, but I had no idea what it might be.

  Finally, Johnny broke the long period of silence. He starred out at the field as he spoke, his head resting on his clasped hands. His voice was low and had a slight quiver in it as he spoke.

  “Remember that day at Boger Field, the day Ruth came to play,” Johnny started.

  “And remember how I never came to the game.” He continued trying to steady his voice.

  “Well that game was important to me too. I wanted to see that game more than I ever wanted to do anything in my whole life. I know how hard we worked to be able to get there and be part of it. It was going to be the highlight of my life too.”

  I listened intently as I could tell Johnny was looking to tell me his story and I was not about to interrupt him.

  “That morning I was all ready to meet you, but I was outside your house way earlier than we had planned so I sat on your porch and waited for you to come out. When I realized how early I was, I decided to run over to the clubhouse and grab my baseball glove; I wanted to have it when we met Ruth so that I could get him to sign it. I jumped through the window and went into the clubhouse and picked up the
glove and started to climb up on the table to boost myself out.”

  “Just as I jumped on the table to get out, Billy Brannigan barreled through the window and his feet kicked me right in the face. I don’t know if that was what he wanted to do or if it was an accident, but he picked me right up off the ground and threw me in the corner of the clubhouse. I was woozy from the kick in the head as I felt him grab my head and smash it hard into the brick wall.”

  Johnny starred out onto an empty Yankee Stadium field, never giving any eye contact as he spoke.

  “I was waiting for him to start beating me from behind, but instead he pulled down my pants. He started to try to have sex with me from behind. He was screaming at me at the top of his lungs and I couldn’t tell what was happening. I couldn’t talk and I was jammed up against the wall so tight that I couldn’t get my arms free to fight back.”

  Johnny paused for a moment and took a deep breath as he tried to muster up the courage to continue telling his story.

  “I wanted to break free but my face was pressed so hard against the wall that I could barely breathe. I don’t know if a minute went by or if ten minutes, but finally I got a hand free and I reached out for whatever I could grab. I pulled a loose brick out of the wall, and tried to swing it in his direction, but I couldn’t get my arm