W.W.B.D.
What would Babe do – show up to congratulate and celebrate with Barry Bonds when he breaks the home run record, stay away as Hank Aaron has chosen to do or vacillate to the final moment like commissioner Bud Selig?
Nearly every day in recent years, when I lived on the Upper West Side in New York City, I walked through Central Park and past the Dakota where John Lennon was killed, then strolled across the lobby of the Ansonia, a majestic and legendary hotel/apartment building where bank robber Willie Sutton was arrested, where Jack Dempsey, Florenz Ziegfeld, Tony Curtis, Enrico Caruso and Walter Matthau in “The Sunshine Boys” resided, where Bette Midler and Barry Manilow made their big splash at The Continental Baths, where the idea for the 1919 Black Sox scandal was formulated and where Babe Ruth lived for years after he was traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees in 1920.
It was claimed that ghosts would appear in the Ansonia’s elevators. I believe the stories were valid. I’m sure I talked to the Bambino twice.
I’m also certain that he rematerialized in my backyard in Denver – The Field of Baseball Dreams – four days ago, on what would have been the 93rd anniversary of his debut in the major leagues.
“Hi, kid,” said Ruth, who addressed everyone as “kid.”
“Hello, Babe,” I replied (shockingly). “How you doin’?”
“Couldn’t be better….Been to Europe. Paris ain’t much of a town.”
“May I ask you a few questions?”
“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way,” the Babe responded.
“How do you feel about your home run records – single season, 60, career, 714 – being surpassed?”
“In the clubhouse after I hit my 60th homer in 1927, I told the guys: ‘Sixty! Let’s see some (other player) try to top that one.’ Well, kid, I guess some (other players) did it….All I would do is pick out a good one and sock it.”
I asked: “Sammy Sosa was once found to be hitting with a corked bat. Leigh Montville wrote in his book ‘The Big Bam’ that you used a ‘forerunner of the corked bat’ part of one season. The bat was four lumbered pieces, not one, held together by glue. The commissioner declared the glue helped the velocity of the ball, and he ruled the bat illegal.”
He didn’t like the question.
“Who the (heck) are you? I don’t know you….I came to be with my buddy Jack Dempsey. We played cards at the Ansonia.”
“Bonds has been accused of taking steroids. Did you ever take illegal substances, Babe?”
Ruth, dressed in his favorite white silk suit with black-and-white shoes, hesitated.
“I drank tons of beer, and I ate three hot dogs a day, and I loved steak with lots of potatoes in my hotel room in Washington. Got a bellyache. Took bicarbonate of soda.”
“It was reported many years later your ballyhooed bellyache was a…uh …social disease. Bonds also was accused of having a mistress, who claimed he didn’t include an autograph signing on his income tax. Robert W. Creamer stated in his book ‘Babe’ that you often caroused, telling a teammate before a game: ‘You should have seen this dame I was with last night.’ And there were questions about your tax payments. Montville wrote that in 1924 you filed an amendment to your return for a $9,000 deduction.”
“(Chicago Cubs pitcher) Charlie Root was a (lousy) bum. I called my (famous home run) shot on him….Some of you sportswriters are lousy bums, too, and should (expletives deleted). My accountant said I spent it for the purpose of establishing and maintaining good will to the extent of entertaining sportswriters, press agents and others.”
“What about the women?”
“Oh, go to (netherworld). Ain’t so.”
“Of all the books you read, what was your favorite?”
“Reading ain’t good for a ballplayer’s eyes.”
“Ty Cobb was considered to be a better all-around player than you.”
“Cobb was a (bad fellow). But, God almighty, that man could hit.”
“What’s your advice to Bonds?”
“Don’t ever forget two things I’m going to tell you. One, don’t believe everything that’s written about you. Two, don’t pick up too many checks.”
“What do you think about the modern game?”
“Baseball changes through the years. It gets milder.”
“In ‘The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs,’ Bill Jenkinson suggests that if you had played in 162 games per season instead of 154, you would have added 40 home runs, and if you ‘played with the same outfield dimensions as current sluggers, Babe would add about 300 home runs.’ That would have given you more than 1,000 home runs. Nobody would have eclipsed that record. What would you have accomplished playing at Coors Field?”
“I’d hit 80 outta here.”
“Should Bonds retire after this season?”
“All ballplayers should quit when it starts to feel as if all the baselines run uphill.”
“Bonds says you didn’t have to endure what he has as an African-American in society and baseball. However, it has been written that after you were placed in a Baltimore home for orphans and delinquents for 13 years, you were called a racially derogatory name, because of your dark skin, more than 100 times a day. Reaction?”
“Don’t call me that, or I’ll break your arm.”
“You had your fights with commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. He even suspended you and was not present for your 60th home run or your last three for the Boston Braves in 1935.”
“He hung up on me twice.”
“Finally, you went back for ‘Lou Gehrig Day’ and the moving tribute to you at Yankee Stadium as you were dying from cancer, and you attended some old-timers’ games. Will you be on hand for Bonds’ record-breaking performance?”
“Nobody’s told me not to come. I go where I please….Now, let’s go hit a few.”
(The above interview obviously did not happen. The Babe’s quotes, though taken out of context, are true.)
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
