Point Is, He Didn’t : Conference Lays to Rest Myth of Ruth’s Called Shot

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. —  Hofstra University, better known for its scholarly conferences on presidents, recently convened one to celebrate the life of a baseball player who once gloated about making more money than a U.S. President.

He was born George Herman Ruth 100 years ago in Baltimore, but as Babe Ruth he was, and still is, perhaps the game’s most compelling figure.

About 1,000 sports scholars, authors, economists, reporters, statisticians, politicians and ordinary fans paid the $35 registration fee and picked, poked, prodded and argued over Ruth’s remarkable career.

Over three days, there were panels on Ruth’s home runs--one guy showed up with notes on each of Ruth’s 714 homer--his salaries, his advertising and marketing deals, his off-season barnstorming trips, his movies, his influence on Japan and Latin America, his impact on today’s players and his relationship with the media.

Then, finally, the most anticipated panel of all: Ruth’s most famous home run, the “called shot” in the 1932 World Series.

Panelists tried peeling back the fog of time, hoping to find a consensus as to what did or did not happen that day, Oct. 1, 1932.

Legend has it that in the third game of the ’32 World Series at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, Ruth, defiant in the face of angry Cub fans and players, gestured toward center field during his fifth-inning at-bat . . . and then hit a home run to center.

What is certain is that Ruth, then 37, did hit a home run to center field that day and that it was the longest hit at Wrigley Field.

At issue was whether Ruth actually called it.

The consensus: Probably not.

It was the first serious discussion of the subject since the 1993 discovery of a film of the game in a Louisville attic. The 16mm film was shot by a fan seated behind and slightly to the left of home plate.

An enhanced version of the fuzzy, dim film was run and rerun during the discussion, and nearly everyone agreed that:

--Ruth can be clearly seen shouting repeatedly at the Cub bench during the at-bat, apparently responding to taunts.

--He can be clearly seen raising fingers of his right hand, and they seem to be Strike 1 and Strike 2 gestures.

--After the second strike call, he does not appear to make a gesture toward center field with his right hand, but rather a jerky, right-hand motion to Chicago pitcher Charlie Root.

The gesture seems to say something like, “Give me a fastball, right about here.”

What definitely does not occur is a dramatic gesture, as depicted in the 1948 movie, “The Babe Ruth Story.”

Even though in later years Ruth himself, in several private conversations, said he had not made any such gesture--and most newspaper accounts of that day didn’t mention one--it remains the baseball legend that won’t die.

As one panel participant, author Peter Golenbock, put it:

“Despite the fact [that] Root, the catcher, the umpire and even Ruth himself all said he didn’t call the shot, we still want to believe that he did.”

Root, who died in 1970, adamantly maintained that Ruth had not called his shot.

He was offered a role in the 1948 film, but said he turned it down when he was told the movie would show Ruth calling his shot.

“He absolutely did not point,” Root said at the time. “If he had, I’d have knocked him on his [butt] with the next pitch.”

No one, however, enjoyed the legend more than Ruth himself.

For years, when asked about it publicly, his stock response was, “Look it up. It was in all the papers.”

No, it wasn’t.

Panelist Stan Isaacs, a retired Newsday columnist, said he launched a called-shot research project years ago.

“I got to wondering what was actually reported that day, so I looked at microfilm stories in the 18 newspapers that actually covered the game,” he said.

“What I found was some very poor reporting. For one thing, the writers didn’t even agree on what the count was. And of 18 writers who filed stories that day, only four mentioned a gesture of any kind, and of those, only Joe Williams used the term called shot. “

Isaacs said that prominent writers such as Paul Gallico and Grantland Rice didn’t mention any gesture in their game stories but were “all over the story” two days later.

A 1982 L.A. Times search showed that the New York Times’ John Drebinger didn’t describe Ruth’s fifth-inning homer until his 35th paragraph.

The Chicago Tribune’s Edward Burns wrote that Ruth pantomimed the umpire’s calling of two strikes, but mentioned no home run gesture.

Time magazine’s Series wrap-up, published a week later, mentioned no called shot.

Ruth’s teammates, not surprisingly, supported the called-shot legend for years.

But probably closest to the truth was one of Ruth’s former teammates, Mark Koenig, interviewed by The Times in 1982. He was the Cubs’ shortstop that day.

In fact, the animosity Ruth directed at fans and players was over Koenig’s status. In a trade, Koenig went from the Yankees to the Cubs early in the season. But Ruth and the Yankees were outraged when the Cubs did not vote Koenig a full World Series share.

Koenig, who died in 1993, said there had been a gesture, but not the kind portrayed in film, book and legend.

“Ruth did point, sure,” he said.

“He definitely raised his right arm, I can remember that. But he did not point to center field. He indicated he’d hit a home run. But as far as pointing to center, no. . . . My gosh, a guy would have to be crazy to do that . . . with two strikes and against a pitcher like Root.”

A front-row spectator that day was James Roosevelt, whose father, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt, was seated next to him and who was in his first campaign for the presidency.

“I remember a lot of hoots and howls by the Cub fans when Ruth came to bat,” James Roosevelt said in 1982. (He died in 1991.)

“And I remember, with great deliberateness, he pointed to the longest part of the park. There was no question what the gesture meant. When he hit it, I remember Dad saying: ‘Unbelievable!’ ”

As for the game, the Yankees won, 7-5. And even with no called-shot controversy, it would still be one of the most noted of all World Series games.

Ruth and fellow slugger Lou Gehrig each hit two homers that day.

The Yankees won the following day, 13-6, completing a four-game sweep.

And Ruth’s controversial homer in Game 3 was his 15th and final World Series home run.