February 23, 2022

Legion Baseball flashback: Remembering Babe Ruth's Legion tour

By Richard Walker
Baseball
Legion Baseball flashback: Remembering Babe Ruth’s Legion tour
Legion Baseball flashback: Remembering Babe Ruth’s Legion tour

Just before his death, the icon toured in support of American Legion Baseball.

The iconic Babe Ruth was known as much for his unpredictable playful nature as for the wondrous athletic talents that were so extraordinary some consider him the greatest baseball player of all time.

One year before his death in 1948 at 53 years old, American Legion Baseball players got to witness that engaging behavior even as he battled throat cancer.

It was part of a nationwide tour in 1947 when he was American Legion Baseball national director for the Ford Motor Company. Ford sponsored ALB tournaments and many Ford dealers supplied uniforms for their local teams.

Ruth had long enjoyed surprise visits, ranging from seeing sick youngsters in the hospital to visiting with fans after games to even showing up unexpectedly at local colleges during baseball’s preseason workouts.

One example came in 1929 in Belmont, N.C., when just hours before a 9-4 New York Yankees’ exhibition victory over the Charlotte Hornets minor league team at Charlotte’s old Wearn Field, Ruth and several of his teammates visited the Belmont Abbey College campus.

The Yankees were two-time defending World Series champions with a feared batting lineup called “Murderers’ Row” after sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals in 1927 and 1928, respectively.

According to an April 13, 1929, report in The Gastonia, N.C., Gazette, Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel, Tony Lazzeri, Earl Combs, Mark Koenig, Mike Grabowski and George Burns visited the Benedictine college’s campus in a trip arranged by Thomas W. White.

White worked for the old Sinclair Oil Company and also was president of New York City’s Belmont Abbey Alumni Association where he was a close friend of Yankees’ management.

Ruth and his Yankees teammates visited with Abbey staffers and even watched part of a Crusaders’ baseball practice. A photo of Ruth with one of the Belmont Abbey staff members is on display at the school’s Wheeler Center Athletic complex.

“Well, boys, it’s mighty nice of you having me out here,” Ruth told the baseball team of head coach Fred Shipp. “I’ve heard many wonderful reports about your athletic clubs and I want you to continue your successes.”

After the visit, White invited the entire Belmont Abbey student body — approximately 300 at the time — to the exhibition contest.

In that game, witnessed by an estimated 5,000 according to The Charlotte, N.C., Observer, the Yankees scored four runs in the top of the first inning and cruised to victory. Lazzeri and Leo Durocher had three hits apiece, with Koenig, Ruth and Gehrig getting two hits each as the Yankees banged out 15 hits as a team against the Class B South Atlantic League Hornets.

In 1947, Ruth made seven trips to watch American Legion Baseball that created countless once-in-a-lifetime moments and memorabilia.

After visiting Syracuse, N.Y., Detroit and Houston, a crowd of 10,000 greeted Ruth on July 28 at Philadelphia’s old Shibe Park. Ruth visited with Philadelphia A’s manager Connie Mack and attended the 4th Annual Eastern Pennsylvania American Legion All-Star game.

Eventual Philadelphia Inquirer sports reporter Don McDonough was among those in attendance. McDonough, an Army veteran who also worked as a public relations executive, told his story in a 2005 Legion.org story titled “One boy’s unforgettable moment.”

“We arrived by trolley car to a scene that was overwhelming,” McDonough remembered. “Thousands were already there.”

A Philadelphia Inquirer report of the time said, “Some 10,000 youngsters went wild when an open car drove onto the field and the Babe stepped out. He was greeted at home plate by (Hall of Fame Philadelphia Athletics manager) Connie Mack and addressed the group over the microphone, his voice being surprisingly vibrant and his delight at the rousing reception very apparent. Bundled in his traditional camel’s hair coat, he replied to the gracious speeches and the prayer offered by Cardinal Spellman with a husky, heartbreaking, almost incoherently audible speech about the value of baseball for boys.”

Ruth later proceeded to his third-base box seats while being accompanied by an entourage of VIPs that included his wife Claire Merritt Hodgson Ruth.

McDonough then recalls his decision to come away with a life-long memory — and some valuable memorabilia.

“I started to slowly make my way to his box,” McDonough said. “I reached the first row and an unattended metal gate that opened to the field. I made my move. I darted just a few feet onto the field, turned and was face to face with the Babe. He was laughing with friends and was a bit startled at my approach.

“I thrust a piece of scrap paper and a school pencil toward him. He smiled and in a raspy voice said, ‘Sure, kid.’ He penciled ‘Babe Ruth’ on the paper. I decided to push my luck. In a weak voice, I asked, ‘Could you sign it, ‘To Don’?’

“‘Sure, Don,’ he answered. ‘Here it is.’ I scrambled back to my seat, clutching my new treasure, fully realizing that I had hit something of a home run myself: a personal autograph from Babe Ruth.

“Now, ... years later — after a newspaper career that placed me in the company of VIPs, presidents, rock stars and other celebrities, long after Shibe Park was razed to become a parking lot — no other event means so much. I still have that scrap of paper. And to this day, when conversation turns to Legion Baseball, my mind drifts to that moment when I was 12 and heard an American legend speak those words: ‘Sure, Don … here it is.’”

A month later, in Indianapolis on Aug. 5, 1947, Ruth was a special guest at another Legion All-Star game that preceded a Class AAA American Association Indianapolis Indians game.

According to a 2015 Indianapolis Star story on the visit, Ruth “still thrilled the crowd when he was introduced during the intermission between the Legion game and the Indianapolis Indians’ game with Milwaukee.”

The newspaper wrote that, “Ruth sat through the Legion game and several innings of the Indians game but his ill health began to take its toll and he had to leave. Ruth managed to meet with young ballplayers, sign a few autographs and pass out words of wisdom, ‘the secret to hitting home runs is the snap of the wrist and timing.’”

Earlier in the day Ruth had conducted an hour-long press conference on a pair of radio broadcasts and attended a luncheon in his honor. He also three days earlier had undergone a blood transfusion.

Despite those health struggles, Ruth attended two more American Legion events in August.

He went to a three-team sectional in Billings, Mont., where he was the featured speaker for an Aug. 19 banquet the night before action began. Among the players he met were future major leaguer Vern Law, then a pitcher for Boise, Idaho.

A week later at the ALWS in Los Angeles, Ruth saw Cincinnati go unbeaten in a four-team tournament that included a 3-2 victory over Little Rock, Ark., for the championship; San Diego and Manchester, N.H., were the other World Series participants.

After the Aug. 31 championship game, Ruth presented the championship trophy to Cincinnati Post 50 officials and presented each player with a Spalding baseball with his autograph on it.

Among the players on Cincinnati’s team were future major leaguer and longtime manager and coach Don Zimmer, future Chicago Cubs manager and executive Jim Frey and 1947 Louisville Slugger Award winner George Moeller.

Just 11 years earlier — and only one year after his retirement from the major leagues — Ruth was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., as one of its “first five” inaugural members. Though he began his career as a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox — Ruth pitched that franchise to 1915, 1916 and 1918 World Series titles — he’s most remembered for his time with the New York Yankees.

Ruth, who held career records in home runs (714), RBIs (2,213), walks drawn (2,062) and slugging percentage (.690) at the time of his retirement, earned the nicknames “Bambino” and “Sultan of Swat” while leading the Yankees to their first four World Series titles (1923, 1927, 1928, 1932).

He finished his career with the Boston Braves in 1935. He died of throat cancer on Aug. 16, 1948, and in 1949 received a posthumous Distinguished Service Medal from The American Legion for his work with the baseball program.

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