This unsigned editorial about Babe Ruth first appeared in the Oct. 6, 1927, issue of The Sporting News, after Ruth — no first name necessary in the editorial, same with Gehrig — broke his record of 59 home runs, set in 1921, with 60 in ’27. It appeared under the simple headline, “Home Runs.”
If a ball player persists in making home runs, his daily product cannot be avoided. Ruth has the habit. Others have tried to acquire it.
The first time he batted an insignificant number of home runs, some 25 or so in one season, all of the well-versed men in baseball extolled his feat highly. All of them without exception — and we desire to say it was without exception, despite the fact that some of them have been trying to insist ever since that they did except — commented on the performance as a remarkable display of batting strength. They declared that Ruth never could do it again, and so it seemed, too. There was nothing to show that he was possessed of a craze for making home runs at sight, a leftover from a fetish and a dozen or so of rabbits’ feet thrown in for good measure.
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The next season he knocked out so many home runs that the record of the season before seemed as it it were mashed squash. That killed further the prophesying about Ruth. The prophets did not cut off their beards because they had none to amputate, but they sat by the wall of the city and wondered what this burly chap meant by turning the record bureau of baseball inside out.
He did even better than he had done before after another year had rolled around. The men who make up records got tired of trying to write different stories about that which he did. In fact, the home run thing began to pall on the community like the smoke of dead leaves burning in an Autumn pyre.
The clamor over home runs abated a little, to be aroused again when he hit three in one afternoon in a World’s Series game in St. Louis. This year it almost reached the pristine stage when he started a race with Gehrig for a home run record, and now the uproar is about as noisy as ever.
Mind, too, this from a batter who had so much of the stamina of human necessity knocked out of him that for a time, there were grave doubts the he would play much more baseball and apprehensions on the part of his friends that dropped from their chins to the ground as icicles drop in Winter season from the eaves.
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No more can be said than has been said about this home run man. One may repeat again and again in regard to him, but after all the same theme always will be in the ascendancy. He is made of something that is superman when comes to elevating the ball in the air and knocking it to Bally Trae or Balna-Google. We have a firm conviction that he would not have made so many home runs had he been playing on the ball grounds of years ago, when the outfield went back to the adjoining county, but what’s the use of worrying about that?
His class is his own, and it begins with Babe and ends with Babe.
How the Bambino Broke His Record
A NEW HOME run record for Babe Ruth! The great New York Yankees slugger when his mark of 59, established in 1921, one better this season he laced out No. 60 to climax a record month for him in the homer line. He’d polled out 17 for the circuit during September.
A review of his homers for the 1927 seasons shows that 13 of his 60 smashes were made against left-handers. Here are his homers as well as his pitching victims.
Date — Pitcher, Club (Men on Base)
Apr. 15 — Ehmke, Philadelphia (0)
Apr. 23 — Walberg, Philadelphia (0)
Apr. 24 — Thurston, Washington (0)
Apr. 28 — Harris, Boston (0)
May 1 — Quinn, Philadelphia (1)
May 1 — Walberg, Philadelphia (0)
May 10 — Gaston, St. Louis (3)
May 11 — Nevers, St. Louis (1)
May 17 — Collins, Detroit (0)
May 22 — Karr, Cleveland (1)
May 23 — Thurston, Washington (0)
May 28 — Thurston, Washington (1)
May 29 — MacFayden, Boston (0)
May 30 — Walberg, Philadelphia (1)
May 31 — Ehmke, Philadelphia (1)
May 31 — Quinn, Philadelphia (1)
June 5 — Whitehill, Detroit (0)
June 7 — Thomas, Chicago (0)
June 11 — Buckeye, Chicago (1)
June 11 — Buckeye, Chicago (0)
June 12 — Uhle, Cleveland (0)
June 16 — Zachary, St. Louis (1)
June 22 — Wiltse, Boston (0)
June 22 — Wiltse, Boston (1)
June 30 — Harriss, Boston (1)
July 3 — Lisenbee, Washington (0)
July 8 — Whitehill, Detroit (2)
July 9 — Holloway, Detroit (1)
July 9 — Holloway, Detroit (3)
July 12 — Shaute, Cleveland (1)
July 24 — Thomas, Chicago (0)
July 26 — Gaston, St. Louis (1)
July 26 — Gaston, St. Louis (0)
July 28 — Stewart, St. Louis (1)
Aug. 5 — Smith, Detroit (0)
Aug. 10 — Zachary, Washington (2)
Aug. 16 — Thomas, Chicago (0)
Aug. 17 — Connally, Chicago (0)
Aug. 20 — Miller, Cleveland (1)
Aug. 22 — Shaute, Cleveland (0)
Aug. 27 — Nevers, St. Louis (1)
Aug. 28 — Wingard, St. Louis (1)
Aug. 31 — Welzer, Boston (1)
Sep. 2 — Walberg, Philadelphia (0)
Sep. 6 — Welzer, Boston (2)
Sep. 6 — Welzer, Boston (1)
Sep. 6 — Russell, Boston (1)
Sep. 7 — MacFayden, Boston (0)
Sep. 7 — Harriss, Boston (0)
Sep. 11 — Gaston, St. Louis (0)
Sep. 13 — Hudlin, Cleveland (1)
Sep. 13 — Shaute, Cleveland (0)
Sep. 16 — Blankenship, Chicago (0)
Sep. 18 — Lyons, Chicago (1)
Sep. 21 — Gibson, Detroit (0)
Sep. 22 — Holloway, Detroit (1)
Sep. 27 — Quinn, Philadelphia (3)
Sep. 29 — Lisenbee, Washington (0)
Sep. 29 — Hopkins, Washington (3)
Sep. 30 — Zachary, Washington (1)