Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
I have read that Root and Ruth discussed it years later and Ruth acknowledged that he hadn't called his shot but said he had never denied it because it made for a good story.
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One of the awesome benefits of working for the Cubs in much of the decade of the 80’s was that I was able to speak to so many people around the ball park who had a front row seats to history and were willing to share what they had seen. Hearing George Brace tell stories of sitting in the dugout with Ruth and Gehrig at old Comiskey Park, listening to Don Zimmer holding court with a group or writers as he told of his experiences with the Brooklyn Dodgers and being at the Hall of Fame election night party for Billy Williams are just a few of the incredible memories I carry with me from my time with the team. But my favorite memories are the several conversations I had with three different individuals who were at the Ruth called shot game and saw exactly what happened.
One such story came from the Cubs electrician who’s father worked on the grounds crew during he 1932 World Series. As we all know, the Cubs were riding Ruth pretty heavily in order to rattle him but the more they rode Ruth, the better Ruth seemed to perform. In the conversation I had with the electrician, he said his father confirmed the Cubs were saying some pretty nasty stuff when Ruth came to bat in the 5th inning and it appeared Ruth wanted to mess with the Cubs a bit. We have all heard the story of Ruth letting pitch number one go past as he held up his finger and announced that was pitch number one, and did the same thing for pitch number 2 all the while saying it "only takes one". The electrician said that his dad was near the field (or in the dugout…this part my memory fails me on) ready to work on the conditioning the field mid-game when he saw Ruth point two fingers to the right-center bleachers and proceeded to plant the next pitch in the general direction in which he pointed. Each and every person I had talked to who was present in the ball park that day said that without a doubt, Ruth did not call his shot but described the scene the electrician’s father retold.
The film that has surfaced of the called shot a number of years ago seemed to back up this version of the game and Ruth called himself a lucky S.O.B. There was no doubt in the eyewitnesses eyes that I spoke to and now in my mind that the called shot is a fable based in some bit of fact.