Evening star., 1940-01-22
Ruth Abandons
Hope Of Berth
In Baseball
Homer King, Getting
Gray, Is Satisfied
With Easy Life
BY JUDSON BAILEY,
Associated Press SpOrts Writer.

NEW YORK, Jan. 22.-The great
est figure Of baseball's modern age,
Babe Ruth, has given up hope of
ever returning to the game he glori-
fed for two decades.
A mellow. bulging fellow living
decorously on the annuities he had
the good sense to lay away with
part of the million dollars he earned
in. baseball, the Babe doesn't seem
sorry.
"Yeh, guess I'm out of it," Ruth
said today. I've got comfortable
home here and no worries. I get a
few odd jobs to do, but mostly
keep busy trying to hold down my
weight, I play a lot of table tennis
and golf, 60 hunting, and I've got
one Of those electric horses, too.
Il was out hunting all last week
got bunch of birds and bad
cold"
Crowds Ruin Babes Clothes.
He's different Bambino now
from the rollicking, carefree char
acter who caused the record books
to be rewritten, received up to $780,
600 year from the New York
Yankees, squandered possibly a
quarter of a million in luxurious
living and paid some $4,000 in
baseball fines.
He weighs 243 pounds, IS or 20
above his playing weight. and will
be As years old February 7. Tattle-
tale gray is beginning to show on
his temples. Somehow it was e.
melancholy scene as the Babe
lounged in a smoking jacket amidst
countless trophies and remarked:
Il don't go to the games much
any more. Every time 1 go I ruin
a suit Of clothes getting through the
crowd. Somebody spilled ink all
down the back of my coat the last
time"
Although he doesn't see much of
it, Ruth still likes to talk about
baseball and compare the old DAYS
with the present. He'll be heading
South next month-to take a place
On the faculty of a baseball school.
These baseball schools do more
good for young player than most
people realize" he championed
They have real instructors who
show the boys how to improve
themselves and few weeks in a
proper school is worth years of sand
lot play. The big league clubs ought
to lend the schools a hand. They
sign a lot of players out of them
every year.
There aren't so many ball players
coming up as there were in my day.
Kids in cities don't have much
chance to play. If baseball hadn't
started the chain store system I
don't know where it would be-"
The Babes well-known artipathv
to exhibition games cropped up
when he declared "thereu never be
any more 20-year players. They
burn out too fast. A week after
training camp opens they start
playing games and then wonder WHY
the players get sore arms and Char
ley horses. They play IS or 40 ex-
hibition games in the spring and
during the season, so PLAYER
may appear in nearly 200 games a
season. Why, I started with Boston
IN 1914 and we never had a single
exhibition game until 1918"
Gordon. Yanks' Sparkplug.
Steered into later channels, Ruth
praised the present Yankees.
They're a great ball club and I
think they'll be on top for a long
time. Do you know who made this
team? Joe Gordon. He came along
just at the right time. The club
needed a spark and he gave it,"
Finally we asked the Babe a oues-
ton he must have heard hundreds
OF times-is anybody going to break
MS record of 60 home runs in a
season? Looking up at a big dia-
gram on a wall showing the date.
the score, the team, the pitcher for
every one of those homers, he unused
Il hope not. I hope not: not
while I'm alive"