Harvey Frommer / Players  Yankees

Remembering Yankee Stadium - Excerpts
Remembering Yankee Stadium: All-Star Games
Best Baseball Team Ever: 1927 New York Yankees
All About Baseball's Greatest team - - the New York Yankees
Roll out the Barrel: The 1927 Yankees
An Oral and Narrative History of The House That Ruth Built

HARVEY FROMMER ON SPORTS

Barnstorming Around America with the 1927 New York Yankees

When Colonel Ruppert's "Rough Riders," as some called them, were not going head to head against their American League competition, they were playing exhibition games in Buffalo, Omaha, Rochester, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis . . . .

Everyone in the little cities and small towns wanted to catch a glimpse of the Babe and Lou and the others. Wherever the Yankees went, there were always packed ball parks and playing fields. The team was a magnet, a syncopated jazz band playing a baseball song with the Babe leading, striking up the band with his home run baton, his bat. Whole towns came out early and they stayed late studying the moves of "the Colossus of baseball," how he walked, how he ran, how he swung a bat, how he caught and threw a baseball, how he joked and wrestled with kids in the fields of play, how many different kinds of home runs he hit. Demand for the Yankees came from all over. Murderers Row even played exhibition games in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, National League cities.

In Omaha, Nebraska, the King of Clouts, Ruth, and his protégé the "Prince of Pounders" Gehrig seemed genuinely happy to make the acquaintance of one "Lady Amco" who was known as the "Babe Ruth of chickens." She was a world champ at laying eggs. The morning the Babe and the Buster met her she produced on cue, laying an egg for the 171st straight day.

In Indianapolis, the Sultan of Swat failed to homer or even swat the ball out of the infield in his first three times at bats. Each time the smattering of boos and heckling became louder, all good natured, of course. According to reports, Ruth in his fourth at bat tagged the ball, and it leaped over the fence in right field into the street bouncing into box cars in a nearby freight yard. That was the story.

And its punch line: "I guess I did show those people something, make fun of me, will they," the Big Bam boomed going into the dugout.

In a dilapidated park in Ft. Wayne, Indiana before 35,000 against the Lincoln Lifes, a semi-pro team, the scene was all too familiar. Hundreds of kids screamed, ached to ogle, to get an autograph or just to be close to George Herman Ruth, their idol.

The Bambino, to save his legs, played first base, as was his custom many times during those exhibition games. Gehrig played right field. Going into the tenth inning, the score was tied, 3-3. Mike Gazella was on first base when Ruth stepped into the batter's box. Always the showman, signaling to the crowd that they might as well start going home, the Big Bam poked the ball over the right field fence giving the Yankees a 5-3 win. Hundreds of boys who had been relatively controlled and contained mobbed their idol as he crossed home plate. It took quite a while before Ruth and the Yankees could clear out of the park

Wherever the exhibition games were staged, overflow crowds sat in the outfield watching the action. Attendance records were broken. Mobs cheered. They roared and howled and jumped to their feet marveling at the power and magic of the mighty Yankees and especially George Herman Ruth.

"God, we liked that big son of a bitch. He was a constant source of joy, Waite Hoyt said. "I've seen them kids, men, women, worshippers all, hoping to get his name on a torn, dirty piece of paper, or hoping for a grunt of recognition when they said, 'Hi-ya, Babe.' He never let them down; not once. He was the greatest crowd pleaser of them all."

In a game played at Sing-Sing, New York against the prison team, Ruth slugged a batting practice home run over the right field wall and then another over the centerfield wall. "I'd love to be riding out of here on those balls," one of the prisoners joked.

During the game the Sultan of Swat turned to the crowd of cons in the stands and bellowed in that big booming baritone voice of his:

"What time is it?"

Many of the cons shouted back the answer.

"What difference does it make?" the showman Ruth yelled. "You guys ain't going anyplace, any time soon."

Harvey Frommer is his 33rd consecutive year of writing sports books. The author of 39 of them including the classics: "New York City Baseball,1947-1957" and "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball," his REMEMBERING YANKEE STADIUM, an oral/narrative history (Abrams, Stewart, Tabori and Chang) will be published in 2008 as well as a reprint version of his "Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball.".

Frommer sports books are available direct from the author - discounted and autographed.

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