The Washington times., 1939-01-14
Farewell to Sport:
Ruth Through as Player,
Still The Crowd Roars
B a b e's Sincerity
Endeared Him
To Millions
By PAUL CALICO
CHAPTER Ill.
CHAPTER Ill.

of my time was George Herman
(Babe) Ruth, the baseball
player. I do not mean to write
like an old man reminiscing, but
of course Babe Ruth is through
as ball player. For the Babe
was and still is a wonderful per-
son and a great human being. l
do not write this as a pop-eyed
cub or even as an exponent of
the Gee whiz, amt he grand?"
school OF sports-writing, but in
sober retrospection over the ca
reer of man I genuinely love
and admire.
The last time I saw Babe
Ruth was at Jones Beach State
Park On Long Island, where I
was putting on a water circus
for my paper. Ruth. finished as
an active ball player, had been
brutally discarded by the game
and it's operators, for whom he
did so much. I invited him to
come down to the beach as guest
star of the days shows.
1t was a warm, bright, SUM-
shiny afternoon in August,
Saturday, and there were some
$4,000 people jammed around
the flat, sandy area of Zach's
Bay. Midway during the pro-
gram Ruth was led down the
aisle bordering the bay and out
across the catwalk that led to
our Dig water stage. No an
nouncement had been made or
was to be made until he reached
the stage and the act then going
on was concluded.
"Splashing" Tribute
But as we walked murmur
began in the vast crowd as they
recognized the big, burly man
with the blob nose, curly black
hair, cigar stuck out of the side
of his mouth. There were in
dividual cries of Hi, Babe!
Oh, you Babe! Hey, Babe, look
up here!" The name passed
from lip to lip. The crowd
caught fire like a blaze running
over a dry meadow, and the
murmur swelled and rose, gained
and grew and took on volume
until by the time he reached
the stage it was one laundering,
booming roar, drowning out the
pounding of the surf on the
beach a few hundred yards
away. It shook the stands and
the CLASSY surface of the water.
1t shook Ruth a little, too-the
man who had heard so many of
these crowd roars.
A few minutes later Babe be-
gan to hit fungo flies out into
the bay. The first three base
balls had hardly splashed into
the bay, when the shore line
half mile or so of it-suddenly
became frothed with white.
More than a thousand young
sters with one sudden. stimuli
taneous impulse, had taken to
the water and we're threshing
out towards those tiny white
baseballs bobbing on the blue
surface of Zach'S Bay. 1t seems
that there was magic on those
baseballS.
Baltimore Boy
There has always been a magic
about that gross, ugly, coarse,
Gargantuan figure of man and
everything he did. 1t is all the
more remarkable because George
Herman Ruth is not Sculptured
after the model of the hero.
He was, after all, when first
noticed, a tough kid in Balti-
more Catholic semi-correction
scnool. His true antecedents-
that is, his father and mother
apparently will always remain
misty and unexplored. Ruth was
an orphan.
am not equipped to tamper
with the question of Ruth'S men
tai age, because he was always
a boyish, direct fellow who spent
most of his time playing game,
but he is possessed of plenty of
shreWdneSs and intelligence. OF
his psychic age, however, I am
prepared to suggest that it never
grew beyond that of 9-year-old.
His reasoning and behavior
were always engagingly child
like and wholly understandable.
There was a time when he was
undernourished and sometimes
starving. No man who has ever
gone hungry ever quite forgetS
it. Now, consider that in the
years between 1914 and 1884
Baoe Ruth in salary and prize
money alone earned the sum of
$1,O00,000. With the perquisites
that fall to every successful ath-
lete in the United States he must
have made that sum over again.
Familiar Figure
He was perhaps the most &C
cessible Uf all our heroes. From
April IA through the first week
in October he was in some ball
park every day, a familiar and
easily distinguished figure with
his funny little mincing run, but