Once More Into the Cauldron of Sound

    

BABE RUTH, 1948

     Yankee Stadium, which opened in 1923, was called "the House that Ruth Built," because Babe Ruth did more than anyone else to make the New York Yankees popular and prosperous enough to warrant such an edifice. On June 13, 1948, a ceremony was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the house Ruth had built and to honor the man himself by retiring his uniform number.
     Although he was desperately ill with cancer, the Babe showed up. The 49,641 fans knew that they would be seeing him for the last time. It was a dreary day, which was strangely fitting. Ruth donned the Yankee pinstripes and waited in the visitors’ dugout for his name to be called.
     When Ruth was introduced, he grabbed a bat (which belonged to future Hall of Famer Bob Feller) and, as W.C. Heinz wrote unforgettably, "walked out into the cauldron of sound he must have known better than any other man." As Ruth ambled haltingly to the third-base foul line, using the bat for a cane, he received the longest and loudest ovation of his life. It was also the last. He died two months later.
 



MICHAEL JORDAN, 2011

     The United Center, which opened in 1994, has been called "the House that Jordan built," because Michael Jordan did more than anyone to make such a giant arena possible to sell out on a nightly basis. Last Saturday night, a ceremony was held to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Bulls’ first championship. Jordan and most of his teammates from the 1991 Bulls showed up.
     Like Ruth, Jordan is the greatest player in the history of his sport. (Unlike Ruth in 1948, Jordan is still hale and hearty.) When Jordan was introduced, he walked into a cauldron of sound that must have been much like the one which greeted Ruth. The crowd’s response was so effusive that even Jordan, no stranger to ovations, seemed a bit startled.
     He smiled broadly, waving to the crowd and soaking it all in, as he stepped up to say a few words. Having already proclaimed Derrick Rose the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for this season, Jordan gave his assessment of the Bulls as a team. "You guys," he announced to the fans, "are in store for a lot more championships." That remark brought the house down.
     Bulls center Joakim Noah appreciated the significance of what he had seen and heard. "The energy in the building from the beginning was great," Noah said. "Hearing the reception Scottie [Pippen] and M.J. got, that’s deep stuff, man. It was special to see that. Twenty years later, [Jordan] can’t even get two words across without the crowd going crazy. To see those guys together, it shows what winning a championship is all about. That’s a beautiful thing."

The "Called Shot"

CHARLIE ROOT

     In Game 3 of the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field, Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees strode to the plate in the fifth inning under a barrage of lemons and other objects thrown from the stands and a hail of verbal abuse from the Cubs’ dugout. Bad blood had been stirred up between the two clubs over the Cubs’ decision to award shortstop Mark Koenig, a former Yankee, only a partial share of their World Series money because he had not played the entire season for the Cubs. Koenig had made key contributions to Chicago’s pennant drive, and Ruth, among others, was outspoken in his belief that the decision was petty and unjust—although those weren’t the exact words he used.
     The mighty Yankees had a 2-0 lead in the Series. The game was tied 4-4. Homers by Ruth and Lou Gehrig off Cubs ace Charlie Root had given New York an early 4-0 lead, but the Cubs had come back to knot it up in the fourth. When Ruth came up again in the fifth, the crowd and the Cubs’ bench were in an uproar.
     Root threw the first pitch for a called strike, then threw two balls. His next pitch was another called strike, and the jeering from the crowd grew louder. At this point Ruth made an ambiguous gesture with his index finger (or was it his middle finger?). Was he pointing toward the Cubs’ dugout, toward Root, or toward the center-field bleachers? Cubs catcher Gabby Hartnett thought he heard Ruth say, “It only takes one to hit it.” Gehrig, who was in the on-deck circle, remembered it this way: “Babe was jawing with Root and what he said was, ‘I’m going to knock the next pitch down your goddamned throat.’”
     The next pitch was low and away. Ruth swung and hit a tremendous home run into the center-field stands—reportedly the longest ever hit at Wrigley Field to that time. Some in the crowd sat in stunned silence, while others (including presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt) cheered. Gehrig followed with another home run of his own, and the Yankees went on to sweep the Cubs, four games to none. “We should have gone home after winning the pennant,” Cubs second baseman Billy Herman said. “The World Series was a disaster.”
     Had Ruth really called his shot? Most newspaper accounts of the game made no mention of it, and Ruth himself neither confirmed nor denied it until much later, by which time the event had become so ingrained in baseball mythology that there was no turning back. Then he said, “Well, I guess the good Lord was with me.”
     For his part, Charlie Root swore until his dying day that Ruth had never pointed to the seats. If he had, said Root, “I’d have put one in his ear and knocked him on his ass.”

Reprinted from Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports
(c) 2009, 2010 by Christopher Tabbert.