Babe Ruth & Baseball All Stars Visit Japan, 1934
Mostly sourced from home movies of star Jimmie Foxx. The 1934 trip was long planned since 1932, but kept getting delayed because the indispensable star Babe Ruth was unavailable. The trip was made after the 1934 season. Ruth never played for the Yankees again. His career would end in 1935 after his trade to the Boston Braves, but he would have one final day of glory. In one of his last games, the Babe hit 3 home runs, including the final one one that soared almost 600 feet. The longest home run ever hit in Forbes Field or possibly anywhere (see below).
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Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, July 4, 1939
As it actually happened. Not a film reconstruction. Sound cuts in and out, can barely hear Mayor LaGuardia, but this is the only film record of this day we have left. Gehrig "luckiest man" speech starts about 8.5 minutes in. Gehrig had less than two years to live. Scenes with Ruth. First time they reconciled since they fought on the 1934 trip to Japan after Gehrig found Ruth having a drink with his wife Eleanor in their cabin. Eleanor was tipsy. Gehrig suspected infidelity, although this seems unlikely since Claire Ruth kept a close eye on him. But it is possible that Eleanor and Babe had a fling before her marriage to Lou, since Eleanor was something of a baseball groupie in Chicago, and Babe rarely said no to a woman, and maybe Lou suspected this.
Clare Ruth and maybe Babe were also upset that Gehrig's mother made a remark that one of the Ruth's daughters was poorly dressed when they were all having dinner together. Ma Gehrig apparently thought that Clare was dressing her own daughter from her first marriage better than Babe's daughter (and Clare's stepdaughter) from his first marriage. Babe used to love Ma Gehrig's German specialties like pickled eels, but the remark upset Clare Ruth. Ma Gehrig, like Clare Ruth, was a pushy and opinionated woman. Babe sometimes jokingly called Clare his "manager", as she did her best to keep him out of the clutches of other women (see the Ruth film short on page 3 where he coaches the women's baseball team). Ruth's first daughter in a book she wrote also expressed the opinion that Clare treated her own daughter better, and maybe Ma Gehrig noticed this.
It is possible that Gehrig told the Yankee owners that he would not play with Ruth again, and in 1935 Ruth was traded to the Boston Braves. The trade would probably have happened anyway, since Ruth's abilities were fading fast (he hit less than 20 home runs in 1934 and his average was low, around .250). But he did have one last fling of glory--a 3 home run game with the Braves in 1935 (see below).
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Ruth goes out with a mighty ROAR--3 home runs in Forbes Fields in 1935, the last one the longest ever hit--"Do not go gently into the night, RAGE against the dying of the light!":
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Ruth lived on until 1948, dying of throat cancer. He spent his retirement years golfing (almost pro skills), bowling (above 200 average), fishing and hunting. Apart from a brief coaching stint with the Dodgers, he was never given a chance to manage even a minor league team. The owners felt that a man they viewed as incapable of controlling his own impulses would be unsuited to managing a team. We will never know. All I know is that in the film clips, the Babe appears to be a good teacher of all the elements of baseball. I think he just might have made a good manager. He should have been given the chance.
Ruth should have also written an autobiography, or at least a book about how he achieved his baseball skills. What Brother Mathias at St. Mary's reform school taught him. Brother Mathias was Ruth before Ruth, hitting monster home runs that awed young Ruth and the other kids. Young Babe idolized him, and learned to hit from him. When Babe became rich he bought a Cadillac for his mentor. When Mathias wrecked it Ruth bought him another. The Babe could have titled his book "How I Became Babe Ruth". It would have sold like hotcakes. A missed opportunity for Ruth and those who are learning to play the game.
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