The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth

by Montville, Leigh

  “But yesterday, while rehearsing a home run blow, he connected with a ball with such power that the club was split from end to end. A piteous expression wrinkled the features of the Babe. His head dropped. He trudged disconsolately to a chair. Smelling salts were applied….

  “Whee! The Bam’s a Director Now” (headline): “The outfielders go to their positions and orders are megaphoned to them by Mr. Wilde,” Hunt wrote. “But Babe shakes his head. He takes the megaphone. The Bambino: ‘You, you left field and you, center field guy, move to the right! There’s a left handed batter at the plate in this shot. What’re you doing so far to the left? Move, you boilermakers, move to the right! What league do you think we’re in? A right hander’s league?’

  “Mr. Wilde nods his approval. The Bambino has become a director!”

  The amount of space devoted in the slim subway tabloid to these softer-than-soft news offerings was amazing. They were a tribute to the Babe’s commercial popularity, a window open to the giddy possibilities that danced in workingmen’s heads. Wouldn’t it be great to live like that! Sometimes too the stories showed some not-so-giddy realities.

  In his 13th installment, for example, Hunt described a particular scene in the movie. Again, he danced lightly, looking for the laugh. The story was headlined “Babe Gets in Shape with an Ethiopian.”

  “The scenario requires that the Bambino throw baseballs at a target in an amusement park which releases a trap and causes an Ethiopian to be precipitated into a pool of water,” Hunt wrote. “Each time the gentleman of color drops from his perch in a wire cage into the water the Babe is presented with a doll by the barker.

  “The generous hero of the photoplay, accompanied by the pure and wholesome laundry maiden he is wooing, causes the Ethiopian to cool his ears in the pool twelve times and he is presented with twelve dolls which, with a gesture of magnificent generosity, he distributes among a group of children who gaze in open-mouthed astonishment at his accuracy in flopping the Ethiopian into the water.”

  Hunt not only presented the picture but offered an extension of it:

  “What a great benefit would the caged Ethiopian prove to pitchers in training camps!” he wrote. “Throwing a curve or fastball to a catcher whom they will face all summer becomes monotonous. The catcher’s glove is not stationary. The catcher can hop or leap to receive the ball. There is no great thrill, nothing to improve accuracy to a marked degree.

  “The installation of an Ethiopian at a training camp would serve to stimulate the pitchers. A certain kick is derived from hitting the smallish target and watching the gentleman of color plunge into the pool.”

  And finally:

  “The supply of Ethiopians in Florida is practically inexhaustible and the cost of the accuracy developing mechanism would be negligible considering the effectiveness it is almost certain to produce.”

  Sweeney probably was not a black man.

  Artie McGovern had arrived early in the proceedings, leaving his gym in New York to personally handle the off-season health of his most notable client. Hunt thought that Ed Barrow had sent the trainer west, but Ruth certainly had the right of consent or refusal and obviously had consented. The bouncy McGovern, as he stated in a letter to New York Post sportswriter Walter Trumbull, was more than happy with what he found.

  “When I left the East to come out here, take the Babe in hand, and try to duplicate the job of last year, I thought the publicity concerning Ruth’s being in good physical condition due to golf, tennis and other sports was the bunk,” Artie wrote. “But when I caught up with the big fellow, I received a very pleasant surprise. He really is in good physical condition. Most of those in the East figured as I did that a 14-week vaudeville tour was likely to put the rollers under anybody. The truth was that most of Ruth’s tour was in this part of the country and he has availed himself of every opportunity to get out on the golf course, not for the sake of exercise, but because he loves the game.

  “When I checked the Babe’s weight and measurements I found him to be 10 pounds lighter than he was at this time a year ago. In other words, he is down to 231 pounds and his best weight is around 220 or 222, so there is not a great deal of work for me to do beyond a general systemic toning up and a concentration on the abdominal muscles. This will be easy in conjunction with the vast amount of exercise he is getting on the picture. The studio has constructed for Ruth a handball court and exercise room, supplying all that is necessary for us to work with.”

  Hunt was enthralled by the exercise regimen. He noted that Ruth was out on Hollywood Boulevard by 6:30 in the morning, running distances from three to five miles as passing motorists and housewives stared. What a sight! Maybe “Tom Mix could be seen on a horse once in a while in Hollywood and Doug [Fairbanks] and Mary [Pickford] might be seen in the comforts of a limousine and there’s no telling where Lon Chaney might be seen, but here was a hero on his own hoof!” The Babe would return to the Hollywood Plaza, where Artie would give him a rubdown.

  Exercise would run through the movie workday. Many of the scenes required physical activity from the Babe. He was always running, throwing, swinging a bat, sliding into home, again and again. Every noon would be an exercise show in itself.

  “The professor [McGovern] would appear with boxing gloves, a medicine ball, a hand ball, a rope, a training table, tennis racquets, a grim determination and a small motor truck,” Hunt wrote. “Lunch for the Babe between 12 to 1? No! For ten minutes the professor and the Babe would box for all that was in them. McGovern would instruct the Bambino to stand upright while the professor would slam 50 virile blows to the tummy of the Babe. Ruth did not flinch. A hard midriff there, brethren!

  “Tennis. Five minutes of rope skipping. Passing of the medicine ball. Exercises on the training table placed in the middle of the tennis courts on the company lot. A great show this, too, with hundreds of movie extras and stars and officials to look on in rapt approval.

  “And to top off the exhibition, Prof. McGovern would mount the back end of the truck and command the Bambino to follow the truck wherever it might go. It usually went two miles; the professor standing on the rear and shouting to the driver to increase speed and daring Babe to pass the truck.”

  At night, Artie sometimes would have the Babe run sprints in the corridors of the Plaza. Sometimes Artie would spar with him in the corridors, lively sessions complete with whoops and hollers. Other residents of the hotel complained. Management was not amused.

  The result of all this work was that the Babe was in even better shape now than he had been at the start of the 1926 turnaround season. He had been following the McGovern plan for over 14 months. What other player in all of baseball was doing the things he was doing, sustained workouts under an expert in physical fitness? The image of the overweight hedonist continued—the News ran a cartoon to illustrate Hunt’s story that showed a black janitor saying, “Great Day. Ah thought its was a elephunt!!!” as a stocky Ruth ran past—but the image was wrong. The Babe was as ready as anyone in his game for the 1927 season.

  McGovern reported a favorite Hollywood moment. The producers of the film wanted to fill tiny Wrigley Field with fans for one day of shooting, so they placed an ad in the paper saying that the Babe would give a home run exhibition for an hour before the filming. The ad worked, and the stands were filled when the Babe came to the plate. The boxer-ballplayers were sent to the field to shag. A pitcher was stationed at the mound and instructed to throw only fat and straight strikes. The show began.

  “For one hour the Babe stood at the plate banging balls over the fence,” McGovern said. “The pitcher started with 12 dozen balls and when they called a halt there were only 19 left, which means that the balance were scattered around the surrounding real estate.”

  Yes, the Babe was ready. He had done what he was told to do.

  “The poor Babe,” Marshall Hunt said, remembering the California trip. “He saw all this stuff around—the most beautiful women in the world—and he couldn’t have any of it.
Artie put him to bed at nine o’clock in the midst of all of this unless he had to work over at the studio. Broke the poor Babe’s heart. He never was in the midst of so much and got so little, you see.

  “The phone rang all the time, and finally Artie got permission from Ed Barrow to tell the operator to lie like hell, so Babe was under wraps for six or seven weeks.”

  Hunt was not in training and could take advantage of the situation. He rolled around the town in the chauffeur-driven limousine the studio had at his disposal 24 hours per day. He went to other motion picture lots and watched other movies being made. He ate at the best restaurants, played golf, met interesting people, roared through the Raymond Chandler streets and boulevards of Los Angeles that soon would become world-famous as the city and the movie industry grew. Even more than in New York, there was the feeling here of growth, expansion, possibility.

  Hunt wound up one night at the home of Christy Walsh’s father in the Hollywood hills. The view from the living room was the great spill of lights of the city. It was like looking down from a cloud. The cloud had plush leather couches and good food and drink. What could be more beautiful? The days went past, he said, “a mile a minute.”

  One night he stayed in his room at the hotel to read. A knock came at the door. The Babe and Artie had someplace to go. Alas, the Babe had promised to sign 250 baseballs for some charity, but now didn’t have time. Could Marshall sign them? He went to the Babe’s room and signed the Babe’s name 250 times, leaving the balls on the bed. The Babe was grateful, especially because Hunt had become quite proficient at copying his name, but in the morning he had some second thoughts. What kind of havoc could someone wreak if he were a good forger?

  “Don’t get too good with that signature, kid,” the Babe advised Hunt over breakfast.

  The few bits of solid news from the motion picture capital involved finances. Walsh convinced the Babe at last to invest in some annuities, and an announcement was made on February 7, the Babe’s supposed 33rd birthday, that he had “fined himself” $1,000 per each year of his life and invested the money. It was another visible sign of his reluctant maturity (the Babe would later try to take out some of the money and be distressed that he couldn’t get at it), and another sign of great financial times. Even the Babe was investing!

  A more substantial story concerned the Babe’s contract. How much did he want? How much would be get? He had played for $52,000 a year for the past five years, and when the Yankees sent a contract for the same figure for 1927 to the Plaza, he quickly sent it back unsigned. Ty Cobb recently had signed for a reported $75,000 with the Philadelphia A’s (a figure later determined to be $60,000), and conjecture soon whirred in New York about how much the Babe would want and how hard it would be for Col. Ruppert to sign him.

  The Babe said nothing as he finished work on the movie. The last week featured 3:00 A.M. bedtimes and 7:00 A.M. Artie McGovern wake-up calls, everything in a rush because the star had to be finished by noon on February 26 to make his train back to the East Coast. Everyone associated with the production agreed that the Babe had worked hard. Ethel Shannon, an actress in the film, called the Babe “a second Roscoe Arbuckle.” She said Anna Q. had been upset because the Babe was too funny. Director Wilde said Ruth had added “at least six belly laughs” to the finished product. It was movie talk, typical overpraise as part of the promotion, but the Babe loved it. He talked about a possible movie career.

  On February 25, the day before he left, he finally sent a letter to the Colonel with his demands. He gave a copy to Hunt, who printed it in the News. Ruth wanted $100,000 per season for two years, plus an extra $7,750 to pay his back fines. He called the Yankees’ offer of $52,000 “an insult” and said the team more than made his salary back in just the exhibition games it forced him to play during the year. He lamented that he was caught, alas, in the contractual bind that was part of baseball.

  “If I were in any other business I would probably receive a new contract at higher salary without request,” the Babe wrote in part. “Or rival employers would bid for my services. Baseball law forces me to work for the New York club or remain idle, but it does not prevent a man from being paid for his value as ‘a business getter’ as well as for his mechanical services.”

  “My demands are not ex…, ex…what’s the word?” Babe said to Hunt.

  “Exorbitant?” Hunt suggested.

  “Yeah, that’s the word,” Babe said.

  The train ride back to New York on the Union Pacific had all the grandeur of any trip taken by a head of any important state. The studio put together a suitable bon voyage celebration at the station, and the Sultan posed for the appropriate pictures and repaired to the drawing room for the long trip back to his kingdom of Swat. Marshall Hunt recorded the glory of it all.

  “Tonight the gargantuan Bambino is on his way to New York, not the Bambino of several years ago who was on the direct route to the poorhouse,” he wrote. “A new Bambino, who saluted the milling crowd, a businessman, a gentleman of opulence off to confer with Col. Jacob Ruppert about the greatest contract ever associated with baseball!”

  Since the end of the ’26 season—actually, since the end of the ’25 season, when he went hunting with Shawkey and then showed up at Artie McGovern’s door—the Babe had been in perpetual motion. His life was a public exhibition. Virtually no day passed when his whereabouts were not reported in some newspaper somewhere.

  He went from that final out in the ’26 Series, that ill-fated attempted stolen base, directly into a two-week barnstorming tour with Gehrig in the Northeast. He went from the barnstorming tour directly into his 12-week vaudeville tour on the Pantages circuit for $100,000, the largest sum to date ever paid for a headliner.

  He’d been to cities across the country and up and down the West Coast, following the usual routines, endorsing different autos and Victrolas from Seattle to San Diego, visiting the local newspapers to put on an eyeshade to “edit” the next edition, standing on the stage and doing his routine. He’d “practiced” with the East-West football squads in San Francisco. He’d been arrested on a bogus child-labor charge for giving baseballs to kids onstage in Long Beach. He’d hunted and fished and played golf everywhere. Golf was a constant.

  When he was asked about all the golf he played, he replied, “You see, divot-digging and slicing the white-washed walnuts keeps the avoirdupois down.” At least that was what the reporter said he said.

  At his arrival in L.A. on January 2 for his week of vaudeville shows, three shows daily, four on Sunday, he was greeted by Mayor George Cryer, football coaches Pop Warner of Stanford and Howard Jones of Southern Cal, president Harry Williams of Pacific Coast Light, and the local heads of the Shriners, Elks, and Knights of Columbus. A fan in the crowd yelled, “See you in Tijuana, Babe,” and he replied, “Like hell you will.” At least that was what the reporter said he said. He was right. All through the weeks of vaudeville, then through the weeks of filming, the big man never did travel below the border.

  One of the other travelers on the train back to New York was Capt. Joseph Medill Patterson himself, the publisher of the Daily News. Patterson had been in L.A. on business, and Hunt bumped into him walking toward the dining car. The Captain wanted to know what Hunt had been doing in L.A. Suppressing an urge to tell his boss to read the paper (the stories had been there every day for three weeks), he said that he had been covering the Babe and now was traveling home with him.

  “Babe Ruth is on the train?” Patterson said. “I’ve always wanted to meet him.”

  “It could be arranged,” Hunt said.

  “When would that be?”

  “Right now if you like.”

  The Captain told Hunt to bring the Babe to his drawing room. He said he was a bit tired, so the visit couldn’t last long. He would give Hunt a sign that the time was finished, and Hunt would guide the visitor out of the room. This was fine except the Babe came to the room and the conversation began and then would not end. Hunt kept waiting for a sign
that never came. After various subjects had been visited, including the Captain’s baseball career and the problems of running a newspaper, Hunt finally said he was tired and had to go to bed.

  “They just hit it off together,” he said. “The Babe had reached a point where he could talk with anybody.”

  Hunt reported the Babe’s progress across the country. In Salt Lake City, the great man sparred for six rounds at the train station with Artie, to the delight of fans. In North Platte, Nebraska, he predicted the Yankees would be an even better team with the development of Koenig and Lazzeri. He said the A’s would be the team to beat. In Chicago, where a crowd gathered at the station, someone asked if he really thought he would get $100,000 a year for two years, plus the $7,750.

  “I hope to tell you,” the Babe replied.

  His arrival at Grand Central Station on the morning of March 2 was another event. Marshall Hunt described the scene.

  “The Twentieth Century coming to an aristocratic stop,” he wrote. “A flurrying, hastening group in the station platform gloom. Photographers, reporters, porters, that flurry; the photographer to photograph the epochal home coming, the reporters to ask questions answered by the Babe a hundred times before.

  “The Babe grew impatient. His departure was sudden. A great limousine—and Babe was off to visit Mrs. Ruth in St. Vincent’s Hospital. A brief visit. (Helen had gone into the hospital again for nervous exhaustion.) Mrs. Ruth was recovering rapidly. An order for a great bunch of flowers.

  “O, there is tenderness in the heart of the Bambino, the gargantuan figure who is rude to umpires now and then. A streak up 3rd Ave. and the Babe had been hustled to the Ruppert brewery at 91st Street.”

  The negotiations with the Colonel and Ed Barrow at the brewery, despite all the speculation, took less than an hour and a half, and most of that time was spent simply chatting. The parties agreed to a three-year deal at $70,000 per year. The Colonel told reporters that he was satisfied. The Babe said he also was satisfied. Done. He also told reporters he had invested $15,000 with Artie McGovern to open a string of gymnasiums on both the East and West Coasts. He used himself as a prime example of what the gyms could do. “If you’re a heavyweight and want to be a welter, come see us,” the Babe said.