Babe Ruth 1948 Farewell Speech

[EddieP]

‘Some 40 years later, Bush recalled the meeting with sadness.
“He was hoarse and could hardly talk,” he told Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe in 1989, his first year as president. “He kind of croaked when they set up the mic by the pitcher’s mound. It was tragic. He was hollow. His whole great shape was gaunt and hollowed out. I remember he complimented the Yale ballfield. It was like a putting green, it was so beautiful.”
Yale was a baseball powerhouse at the time, making it to the inaugural College World Series in 1947 and again in 1948, although the school lost both times.
Bush had been accepted by Yale in 1942, but he put off college to serve in World War II as a Navy pilot, enrolling after the war. By the time he met Ruth, Bush had a young son (and another future president), George W., born in 1946. Bush’s wife, Barbara, would take the baby to baseball games to watch his father, a good-fielding, light-hitting player who batted right and threw left. He finished with a career .983 fielding percentage and .224 batting average, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.