The Selling of the Babe by Glenn Stout Read Free Book Online

everyone showed up and could play out the season, they looked to be the class of the league. But even with the addition of Mack’s best remaining players, the war was still certain to leave some holes, and besides, with so many new recruits, half the players had never met one another before. Barrow wouldn’t really know what kind of team he had until they dumped the equipment bags out on the ground at Whittington Park.
    Spring training began on March 12 with a gingerly played practice. The only regulars among the starting eight in attendance were outfielder Harry Hooper and Everett Scott. Ruth was the only frontline pitcher and he was not yet in shape to pitch. As a result, after the players limbered up, the Red Sox, a major league team in name only as the rest included a dozen or more raw recruits and handful of aging has-beens, barely had enough players to hold a full scrimmage.
    It was probably the best thing that ever happened.

 
    2
    This Means War
    â€œI’d be the laughingstock of baseball if I turned the best lefthander in the game into an outfielder.”
    â€”Ed Barrow
    Of the vast impact Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, would have on the history of the world, the bearing on the game of baseball would be no less profound. Although in later years Harry Hooper, Ed Barrow, and a handful of others would scramble to take credit for the decision to move Ruth off the pitcher’s mound and into the batter’s box, credit should rightly go to Princip. For had it not been for the war, Ruth would be remembered today for his prowess as a pitcher, and nothing else.
    Spring training was a rather loose affair in 1918—the three-mile-or-so walk to and from the hotel was considered part of the players’ training, and apart from some extra throwing, pitchers were treated little different from the other members of the roster. Everyone more or less went through the same drills, “playing” their way into shape through batting practice, shagging flies, taking infield, and intra-squad games. Barrow, who hadn’t managed a big league team team since Detroit in 1904, kept the boys on the field a long time, but was hardly an organizational genius. Frazee brought in veteran infielder Johnny Evers—known as “the Crab” for both the way he scooted abound the diamond and for his sour disposition—into camp to help Barrow out. His managerial skills, never particularly profound, were rusty.
    There was nothing strange about a pitcher taking a turn at another position, especially during the first days of spring training before the games got under way. During spring training in 1916, while Tris Speaker was a holdout, Ruth had played a little outfield, but his fly catching had reminded no one of the Gray Eagle. But in 1918, due to a shortage of talent, there was a little more opportunity than usual.
    Ruth, who today would likely be diagnosed as ADHD and drugged into somnambulism, was just as hard to contain on the field as he was off it. He loved to play, and he never forgot that play was supposed to be fun. It was a holdover from his time as a boy at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys. Although Ruth credited the school and the Xaverian Brothers with changing his life, make no mistake—it was no finishing school. His time there was heavily regulated and the only relief from the drudgery of the regimented lifestyle of church, study, and work was playing sports. For Ruth, this meant baseball. Only on the ballfield was he both valued and free to be himself. He took full advantage of the opportunity.
    No one ever said Ruth didn’t work hard on the diamond, and in the spring of 1918 he was particularly irrepressible, dashing back and forth between activities with the enthusiasm of a young boy let loose in the backyard. He could only throw so