On Oct. 1, 1932, in Game 3 of the World Series, New York Yankee star Babe Ruth hit two home runs against the Chicago Cubs to lead his team to a 7-5 victory, the third win of the Yankees’ four-game series sweep. But one event that day eclipsed not only the team’s win, but the entire series.
The Myth and Mystery of Baseball’s Greatest Home Run
by Ed Sherman (Lyons Press)
Ruth’s second homer that day became one of the most famous home runs in baseball history — the infamous “called shot” that Ruth supposedly predicted by pointing to center field.
While the legend became one of the defining moments of Ruth’s already remarkable career, there has long been reason to question its accuracy — whether Babe Ruth actually called that shot.
In a new investigation, veteran Chicago Tribune journalist Ed Sherman spells out the relevant events of the day, interviews people who were there and pores over other eyewitness accounts to determine whether Ruth’s called shot was one of baseball’s greatest achievements or simply the most loved and lasting of the sport’s outsized myths.
Origin of the feud
There was already bad blood between the Yankees and Cubs when they met for the World Series.
That August, the Chicago Cubs signed a shortstop named Mark Koenig, who had previously spent five years on the Yankees. When the team won the pennant, they gathered to determine the exact division of their World Series bonus money, as players who were not full-season participants could be voted a full share, a half-share, or nothing.
The Cubs voted Koenig, who played 33 games for them that season, a half-share.
For some reason, the Yankees felt Koenig, who had helped them win two World Series titles, had been slighted, and took the insult personally — and none more than Ruth. When the slugger first saw the Cubs at the series, he slammed them to their faces as “a bunch of cheapskates, nickel-nursers and misers.”
The Cubs didn’t take kindly to Ruth’s intrusion into team affairs and yelled back, calling him “grandpop” — he was 37 at the time — and piling on about how he wasn’t smart enough to be a manager, since he had been passed over twice to manage the Yankees. The mutual bitterness built up quickly.
The Yankees won the first two games of the series at home. When they traveled to Chicago for Game 3, the separate trains carrying the two teams were greeted by 5,000 fans. As Ruth and his wife, Claire, disembarked, a “thick and unruly” mob awaited, and the couple was spat on by some local women.
He also wrote that “during that rough trip I heard words that even I had never heard before. But what annoyed me most was their spitting and their bad aim. Poor Claire received most of it.”
The called shot
During Ruth’s first at-bat, in the first inning with two men on, the Cubs and their fans unleashed a torrent of insults, led by Cub pitcher Guy Bush, who unloaded on Ruth from the dugout steps.
Ruth shoved their abuse right back at them with a three-run homer.
He came up for the second time at the top of the fifth — one man out, score tied 4-4 — and the crowd went wild, with Sherman writing that by that point, they “weren’t fans; they were an angry mob.”
With both teams now screaming from their respective dugout steps, the vitriol from both players and fans had built to a roar, and Ruth approached the plate amid a flurry of mayhem unlike any normally heard in a baseball stadium.
Ruth took a pitch for a strike, two more for balls, and one more strike, bringing the count to 2-2.
Exactly what happened next has been the subject of conjecture ever since.
At this point, Ruth made the most famous hand gesture in baseball history, the “call” part of the much-heralded “called shot.” Myth and lore tell us that he pointed directly toward the center-field fence, indicating that as the place where his next hit would land.
Ruth also said something, which would prove important.
His next swing sent the ball farther than possibly any ball ever hit at Wrigley Field — some estimates put it as far as 500 feet. Ruth was “giddy” as he ran the bases, running faster than usual while taunting his attackers.
The Yankees won the game, and their victory the next day brought them the championship. More than that, they exited the series possessing one of the greatest legends in baseball history.
Witness accounts
But was it true?
To determine the legend’s veracity, Sherman scoured press reports of the event and spoke with the few living witnesses he could find, including retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who attended the game at 12 years old, and Lincoln Landis, the nephew of baseball’s first commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
One factor of quickly apparent importance is that almost all of the people who claim Ruth called the shot were basing their conclusions solely on what they saw — Ruth’s arm gesture. Almost none of the “called shot” supporters were close enough to hear what Ruth had said to the Cubs’ dugout and/or to the team’s pitcher that day, Charlie Root.
Which is not to say they weren’t ardent defenders of the legend. Landis, 10 years old when the game took place, told Sherman, “Everyone in the stadium knew he pointed to center field. No doubt about it.”
Yankee superstar Lou Gehrig was in the on-deck circle during Ruth’s home run, and told friends later that night that “there was never any question that Ruth called the shot.” Fellow Yankees Lefty Gomez, George Pipgras and Joe Sewell also verified the account, as did Cub antagonist Bush, who had no reason to burnish Ruth’s legacy.
Then there were the accounts of the day’s sportswriters, some of whom not only propped up the story but might have ignited it in the first place.
The phrase “called shot” was supposedly invented by New York World-Telegram reporter Joe Williams, who wrote, in that day’s nighttime edition, “. . . On the occasion of his second round-tripper [Ruth] even went so far as to call his shot.” His editor took the phrase a step further, headlining the piece, “Ruth Calls Shot As He Puts Homer No. 2 In Side Pocket.”
Doubts emerge
But no matter how many claim to have seen Ruth point to a spot and then hit a ball there, the evidence the other way is far stronger.
For one thing, several of the witnesses proved to be weaker than their word. Landis, in recounting the shot, admitted that he remembered nothing else about the game, suggesting that the legend might have influenced his memory.
Gehrig, it turned out, had told some people that he hadn’t seen the shot, and once told a sportswriter that Ruth had clearly been gesturing to the Cubs’ dugout.
Even Justice Stevens changed his story depending on the audience. He told Sherman that while Ruth did point, he took it as a response to Bush’s razzing from the Cubs’ dugout, as if Ruth were saying, “I’m going to knock you to the moon.” But when asked about it by CBS’s Scott Pelley, Stevens conveniently left out the part about Bush, instead confirming that the called shot happened.
And Williams, the first to popularize the phrase, recanted his claim of having seen Ruth point, proclaiming the called shot an obvious falsehood.
“It was just as easy to believe Ruth had actually called the shot as not, and it made a wonderful story, so the press box went along with it,” Williams wrote.
Then there’s the fact that while many claimed to have seen the called shot, those with the best view — including several of Ruth’s teammates, and every Cub except Bush — piled up on the other end, including, most crucially, those who were close enough to hear what was being said.
These accounts support that Ruth was most likely gesturing toward either the mound or the Cubs’ dugout, yelling something in the realm of how he was going to knock the ball down their throats.
Worse yet for the legend, the Yankees who spoke to Ruth right after the fated at-bat deny that he mentioned anything about having called the shot.
Yankees Bill Dickey, Ben Chapman and Frank Crosetti all said Ruth, upon returning to the dugout, claimed to have simply been giving Root a hard time. Crosetti even said that after Ruth regaled reporters with his tale of how he called the shot, he sat next to Crosetti, winked, and told him, “You know I didn’t point, I know I didn’t point, but if those bastards want to think I pointed to center field, let ’em.”
After examining all the evidence, it’s ultimately Ruth’s take on the event that confirms it as a falsehood. Early in the 1933 season, Ruth told Chicago reporter Hal Totten, who asked him straight out if he had pointed, the following:
“Hell no. Only a damn fool would have done a thing like that. There was a lot of pretty rough ribbing going on . . . there was that second strike, and they let me have it again. So I held up that finger . . . and I said I still have one left. Now, kid, you know damn well I wasn’t pointing anywhere. If I had done that, Root would have stuck the ball in my ear. I never knew anybody who could tell you ahead of time where he was going to hit a baseball.”
Don’t stop believing
Had this happened today, Sherman notes, the interview would have gone viral, the story would have died, and the legend would never have spread. But back then, the account was only seen locally and was quickly forgotten, drowned out by the desire of the passionate to create something more.
And maybe that’s for the best. Myth is often better than truth.
As John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian, said once: “It doesn’t matter whether Ruth called his shot. What matters is that we’re still talking about it.”