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Authors: Leigh Montville
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later, describing Ruth’s debut to
Boston Record
sportswriter Joe Cashman. “Every so often he served up a fat pitch or bad pitch when he shouldn’t have. But he showed a lot of baseball savvy. He picked a runner off third base. He also cut off a throw from the outfield and threw a runner out at second. Anybody could see he’d quickly develop into a standout with a little more experience. He had a barrel of stuff, his speed was blinding, and his ball was alive.”
The cutoff play came in the first inning of his first major league game. Naps leadoff hitter Jack Graney singled, then went to second on a ground ball. Shoeless Joe Jackson, the third batter, singled in front of Tris Speaker in center field. Speaker, who had a wonderful arm, fielded the ball and threw toward home. Jackson made the turn at first and started to head for second.
Ruth, 19 years old, saw in an instant that (a) Graney had pulled up at third in fear of Speaker’s arm and (b) Jackson had made the turn. He cut off the throw and rifled the ball to second. Jackson stopped, retreated to first, and was followed by a throw from second. Graney made a break for home. First baseman Dick Hoblitzel threw to Carrigan, nailing Graney at the plate.
This was cerebral defensive baseball executed at a high level. It was part of what mistakenly in years to come would be called Ruth’s “great baseball instincts,” a term that always would make him sound like some idiot savant, some animal of nature. (“He never throws to the wrong base” would be a common remark.) The truth was that this was what he had learned, what he knew, from all of those games at St. Mary’s. He had practiced this. He knew it.
“The Red Sox pulled off a clever play in the first when Graney lost a fine chance for scoring,” baseball writer Tim Murane said in the next day’s
Globe.
“Ruth was strong in the play.”
Shore pitched the next day and threw a two-hitter, beating the Naps 2–1. Ruth had a second start a week later against the Detroit Tigers and was knocked out in three innings. Shore had a second start and beat the St. Louis Browns 6–2, giving up seven hits and striking out five. He also won the one open spot in the Red Sox rotation.
Carrigan, it seems, had given his two young arrivals a fast audition. Shore was the winner. The fact that he was right-handed helped, because top starters Dutch Leonard and Ray Collins were both left-handed, but he also had pitched better. Parent was right. Shore was the finished product.
Ruth was moved to the bench. The idea of the relief specialist, consistently coming into games in the middle or at the end, was not a part of baseball thinking. The starters started and pitched complete games if they could. The other pitchers mostly sat.
For the first time, Ruth became an extra man. The Red Sox went on the road for a long stretch, hitting Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit, winning 10 of 15 games, and he never left the bench. This was a veteran team, making a midseason run at the Philadelphia Athletics. Another left-hander, veteran Vean Gregg, was acquired from the Naps, and Ruth’s seat became even more secure.
He was pretty much on his own. Dunn in Baltimore had taken the duties of guardian seriously, but there was no guardian here. Egan watched over him a bit until leaving for Cleveland after two weeks, and no one else took the job. Ruth was younger than everyone else (Shore was four years older, plus a college graduate) and didn’t fit. The baseball culture always likes its rookies to be quiet and appreciative of all favors. He was noisy and confident, forced his way into the rotation for batting practice, did things rookies weren’t supposed to do. He found his bats sawed in half one day.
One of his nicknames among the veterans like Smokey Joe Wood and Tris Speaker became “the Big Baboon.” Not a term of endearment, it was more like another statement about his mixed-race features, a cousin to “Nigger Lips.”
Boston Record
sportswriter Joe Cashman. “Every so often he served up a fat pitch or bad pitch when he shouldn’t have. But he showed a lot of baseball savvy. He picked a runner off third base. He also cut off a throw from the outfield and threw a runner out at second. Anybody could see he’d quickly develop into a standout with a little more experience. He had a barrel of stuff, his speed was blinding, and his ball was alive.”
The cutoff play came in the first inning of his first major league game. Naps leadoff hitter Jack Graney singled, then went to second on a ground ball. Shoeless Joe Jackson, the third batter, singled in front of Tris Speaker in center field. Speaker, who had a wonderful arm, fielded the ball and threw toward home. Jackson made the turn at first and started to head for second.
Ruth, 19 years old, saw in an instant that (a) Graney had pulled up at third in fear of Speaker’s arm and (b) Jackson had made the turn. He cut off the throw and rifled the ball to second. Jackson stopped, retreated to first, and was followed by a throw from second. Graney made a break for home. First baseman Dick Hoblitzel threw to Carrigan, nailing Graney at the plate.
This was cerebral defensive baseball executed at a high level. It was part of what mistakenly in years to come would be called Ruth’s “great baseball instincts,” a term that always would make him sound like some idiot savant, some animal of nature. (“He never throws to the wrong base” would be a common remark.) The truth was that this was what he had learned, what he knew, from all of those games at St. Mary’s. He had practiced this. He knew it.
“The Red Sox pulled off a clever play in the first when Graney lost a fine chance for scoring,” baseball writer Tim Murane said in the next day’s
Globe.
“Ruth was strong in the play.”
Shore pitched the next day and threw a two-hitter, beating the Naps 2–1. Ruth had a second start a week later against the Detroit Tigers and was knocked out in three innings. Shore had a second start and beat the St. Louis Browns 6–2, giving up seven hits and striking out five. He also won the one open spot in the Red Sox rotation.
Carrigan, it seems, had given his two young arrivals a fast audition. Shore was the winner. The fact that he was right-handed helped, because top starters Dutch Leonard and Ray Collins were both left-handed, but he also had pitched better. Parent was right. Shore was the finished product.
Ruth was moved to the bench. The idea of the relief specialist, consistently coming into games in the middle or at the end, was not a part of baseball thinking. The starters started and pitched complete games if they could. The other pitchers mostly sat.
For the first time, Ruth became an extra man. The Red Sox went on the road for a long stretch, hitting Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit, winning 10 of 15 games, and he never left the bench. This was a veteran team, making a midseason run at the Philadelphia Athletics. Another left-hander, veteran Vean Gregg, was acquired from the Naps, and Ruth’s seat became even more secure.
He was pretty much on his own. Dunn in Baltimore had taken the duties of guardian seriously, but there was no guardian here. Egan watched over him a bit until leaving for Cleveland after two weeks, and no one else took the job. Ruth was younger than everyone else (Shore was four years older, plus a college graduate) and didn’t fit. The baseball culture always likes its rookies to be quiet and appreciative of all favors. He was noisy and confident, forced his way into the rotation for batting practice, did things rookies weren’t supposed to do. He found his bats sawed in half one day.
One of his nicknames among the veterans like Smokey Joe Wood and Tris Speaker became “the Big Baboon.” Not a term of endearment, it was more like another statement about his mixed-race features, a cousin to “Nigger Lips.”
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