The Prevailing Theory #017: Did Babe Ruth Really Call His Shot? [~9 MIN READ]
In honor of my beloved Texas Rangers winning the World Series (#takemehigher), this week’s issue focuses on one of the biggest mysteries in baseball history. Babe Ruth Calling His Shot.
It would be difficult to find someone who grew up in America and didn’t know about Babe Ruth’s Called Shot. Even if you don’t know about the called shot, you’ve certainly heard of Babe Ruth. The Babe’s synonomous-ness with Americana is best captured in a quote from American soldiers who fought in the Pacific during World War II.
When we’d shout at the Japanese, ‘To Hell with the Emperor!’, they’d shout back ‘To hell with Babe Ruth!’
This week, we unpack whether or not the Babe actually called his shot, the evidence for and against each theory, and what we think really happened. We typically use the FIT Method to examine these sorts of mysteries, but today’s issue doesn’t cleanly fit into that framework, so I’ve added a bit more of a narrative opening! Let’s dive in!
Imagine this: you are playing center field for the Chicago Cubs in the 1932 World Series. Your team is down two games to none to the seemingly all-powerful New York Yankees in this best of 7 series. The Yanks are a far cry from their days as Murderer’s Row, but they still pack enormous offensive firepower thanks to two players: Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth.
The Series has been intense so far and even though your team has dropped the first two games, those were at Yankee Stadium. Now the Yankees step into your home ballpark. Wrigley Field. You also have your ace pitcher,1 Charlie Root, on the mound for today’s game.
Yes sir, today’s the day we turn the Series around, you think as you stand on the top step of the home dugout. Your thoughts are scattered by that loudmouth slob, Ruth, sending another towering fly ball into the newly constructed bleachers in right field. You furrow your brow because it’s the fifth home run he’s hit in this batting practice session. A prodigious display.
“Boy!” He roars. “I’d play for half my salary if I could bat in this dump all the time!”2
Your ears burn, but the home crowd makes sure to let Ruth know what they think of him, showering him with boos and jeers.
“You fat, washed up bum!” you hear someone say. You chuckle under your breath while glancing down at your mitt, inspecting it for the hundredth time. The crowd is electric, and you have a feeling your team will need their energy if they are going to turn the tide of the Series today.
The first few innings pass in a blur, but here in the top of the 5th, it’s a tied ballgame, 4-4. The Yankees are leading, but your boys have answered the bell each time the Yanks have scored. They may have Ruth and Gehrig, but you all have some firepower of your own in Kiki Cuyler and Gabby Hartnett.
Charlie Root, the Cubs ace, has had a rough few innings. In this inning though, he manages to get Yankees shortstop, Joe Sewell, to ground out to his counterpart for the first out. This brings up Ruth with the bases empty. The crowd immediately begins to let him have it.
You think you can hear Root grunt through the din as he fires a fastball in for strike one.
C’mon, Chinski, you think, calling Root by his nickname.
Suddenly, you see Ruth pointing. You can’t hear what he says over the noise, but Root looses another fastball. The Babe lifts his leg but lets the pitch sail by for strike two.
The crowd is feverish now, and you can see Ruth pointing again, but it’s hard to tell to where exactly he’s gesturing. He could be hurling insults at Root, he could be talking to former teammate and current Cubs shortstop, Mark Koenig. Or he could be pointing at the Cubs bench.
Root comes set and throws a curveball. Ruth uncoils from his pigeon toed stance and sends a ball high into the cool October air. It’s headed your way, to straightaway center field, but you don’t need to chase it. You know it is far out of the park, landing in the bleachers built specifically for this Series.
Your head hangs as the crowd boos Ruth. He chuckles happily as he rounds the bases.
You don’t know it yet, but you’ve just seen the most iconic home run in baseball history.
The Mystery
There are a few things that are not mysterious about that Babe Ruth home run on October 1st, 1932.
It was the last home run Babe Ruth would hit in a World Series game. In fact, it was the last World Series the Babe would ever play in.
It was the second home run Babe Ruth hit that day, the first being a three run blast in the top of the first inning.
No, the mystery isn’t about Babe’s home run, but rather, the actions immediately preceding it. The pointing. Because he was pointing at something.
The story goes like this:
Babe Ruth had been getting razzed mercilessly by players and fans of the Cubs all series. Finally, getting sick of the tireless mob of Chicago, Ruth shouldered his bat after taking a second strike from Cubs ace, Charlie Root, and pointed to the center field bleachers. Allegedly, pointing to where he was going to hit the next pitch. The Babe then hit a home run exactly to where he’d pointed.
As if he could be any larger than life, Ruth’s legend grew. Ever the showman, when reporters and media members asked the Babe if he was calling his shot, he confirmed their suspicions.
In the years afterward, Ruth always played up the story, making it more and more dramatic, eventually writing his own account in 1947, a year before his death.
The Theories
Theory #1: Babe Ruth called his shot.
This is the most popular theory, but I think it is because it makes the best story.
Think of it this way - hitting a baseball is so difficult, you’re considered an all-time great if you can do so safely three out of ten times. Add to that the difficulty of not only hitting the ball safely, but then hitting a home run, and on top of that being so good you can simply point to where you’re about to hit the home run you already know you’re going to hit. Seems far fetched. But if anyone could, it’d be Babe Ruth, right?
The evidence here is that the Babe wasn’t the one who started the legend. It was a reporter who watched the moment occur and put it in the headline of his column for the next day’s paper. “RUTH CALLS SHOT AS HE PUTS HOME RUN NO.2 IN SIDE POCKET.”
More evidence here is that pretty much everyone agrees that Ruth was pointing. Everyone remembers the pointing, then he hits a home run where we was pointing? Too much of a coincidence to not be intentional.
Furthermore, there are several eyewitness accounts arguing that Ruth definitely pointed, including the Cubs PA Announcer, a future Supreme Court Justice, and Ruth’s teammate, Lou Gehrig.
Don't let anybody tell you differently. Babe definitely pointed. - Pat Pieper, Cubs PA Announcer
Ruth did point to the center-field scoreboard. And he did hit the ball out of the park after he pointed with his bat. So it really happened. - John Paul Stevens, future Supreme Court Justice
What do you think of the nerve of that big monkey. Imagine the guy calling his shot and getting away with it. - Lou Gehrig, Yankees first baseman
Theory #2: Babe Ruth pointed, but it was at the Cubs bench, then pitcher Charlie Root.
The Babe had been getting jeered relentlessly by Cubs players and fans alike. At one point, he even talked about his wife, Claire, being spit on by fans seated near her.
Babe Ruth mentioned it in his account of the event:
… and that only made me more determined to do something about taking the wind out of the sails of the Chicago players and their fans. I mean the fans who had spit on Claire.
After taking the first strike, the crowd reportedly erupted at Ruth, showering him anew with jeers. Babe Ruth was not known for his meekness, so it is incredibly on-brand for him to give it right back to the Cubs and their fans.
It may seem slight, but most of my evidence from this theory actually hinges around what Ruth did after he hit his home run. The first thing he did was start pointing at the Cubs bench. Then he did so again after rounding third. Because of this, I don’t think he was pointing towards center field, I think he was simply directing insults.
Ruth was just mad about that quick pitch. He was pointing at Root, not at the centerfield stands. He called him a couple of names and said, ‘Don't do that to me anymore, you blankety-blank.’ - Bill Dickey, Yankees catcher
Theory #3: Babe Ruth pointed, but it was at Mark Koenig, the Cubs shortstop.
This one seems unlikely, but hear me out.
Koenig and Ruth had been teammates in New York together. Koenig was a member of that famous 1927 Yankees team, “Murderer’s Row.”
He’d been traded to Chicago in the middle of the 1932 season, and when the Cubs won the National League Pennant, the team voted to forego Koenig’s share of the Word Series pot. It was roughly $4300 (about $100k in today’s money). Koenig had only played in 33 games for the Cubs to that point, so they felt like he wasn’t really instrumental in helping them get to the World Series.
When the Yankees found out about this, they were really upset, because he was their teammate and had been for about half a decade leading up to 1932.
Also, for my readers who aren’t super well versed in baseball, Koenig’s position, the shortstop, stands in the infield between left and center field. Since Ruth was batting from the left side of the plate, if he pointed in Koenig’s direction to tell him he was sorry his teammates were cheapskates or something along those lines, it could look like Ruth was pointing towards center field for almost anyone not seated behind home plate.
Conclusion
So what happened?
For any of you amateur detectives, if you only learn one thing from this newsletter, let it be that eyewitness testimony is unreliable.
We here at the Prevailing Theory believe that Babe Ruth did not call his shot. He was simply using his finger to direct insults to various members of the Cubs.
But don’t just take it from me, take it from the Babe himself. When he was interviewed early in the 1933 season by Chicago reporter, Hal Totten, he had this to say:
Hell no. Only a damn fool would have done a thing like that. There was a lot of pretty rough ribbing going on . . . there was that second strike, and they let me have it again. So I held up that finger . . . and I said I still have one left. Now, kid, you know damn well I wasn’t pointing anywhere. If I had done that, Root would have stuck the ball in my ear. I never knew anybody who could tell you ahead of time where he was going to hit a baseball.
References
Wikipedia page
Babe Ruth interview with John Carmichael
New York Post article, debunking the called shot
An “ace” is the best starting pitcher on a team. Most teams carry five starting pitchers and seven to eight relief pitchers. The best reliever is called the “closer.”
Ruth at the time was making more money than Herbert Hoover, the President. When they asked him about it, Ruth quipped, “So what? I had a better year than Hoover did.” The sum in question? $80,000.
Based on Babe’s own response in the interview, I would agree he didn’t predict where he would hit the ball. However, I also agree that his fans likely opted for the “better story” because that’s just how good he was!