Out of the Park: The Cogitations of Babe Ruth

By John Passfield

When we go to a baseball stadium and cheer a person like Babe Ruth for hitting the ball harder, higher, further and more often than the other players, we are cheering him as our representative. We cheer people of exceptional accomplishment whose achievements are so highly visible and so obviously measurable because we, too, are faced with the complexity of the lives that we live and are challenged to perform feats of heroic proportions just to be able to say that we have lived our lives well when we come to the end. In the novel, Babe Ruth says, There aint nothin like a game of baseball. There aint nothin like a beautiful summer day, with the clouds light and fluffy and the sun on the back of your shoulders and a nice liftin breeze comin down onto the field from out of the stands. The man who feels this way about the game he loves is a man who faces enormous challenges, digs deep down inside himself and finds whatever is needed in order to triumph in the game of life. This makes him a fitting representative for us all; we all hit spectacular home runs in out own quiet ways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463441630

John Passfield

John Passfield was born in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, and continues to reside in Southern Ontario, near Cayuga, with his family. He has taught and studied literature, creative writing and drama, and is interested in the development of the novel as an art-form.

Book preview

Contents

Author’s Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

About the Author

Journals by John Passfield

Planning Notebooks by John Passfield

Author’s Preface

Babe Ruth was a baseball player who transformed the game that he played. He came into baseball in an era of what was called inside baseball, a game which employed the multiple skills of a whole team of players at almost every facet of the game in order to outscore an opposing team by a narrow margin. He transformed the game into one in which a single player could undermine all of the painstaking work of a whole team of players by hitting one pitch out of the park and sending the score higher by anywhere from one to four runs, depending on how many players were on base. In doing so, Babe Ruth came to dominate the whole sport of baseball, and to have an impact on the culture of his age.

I am attracted to the Babe Ruth story because he was a man of exceptional achievement who refashioned his field of endeavour in order to make it congenial to his particular talents. Unlike others, he rethought the basic tenets which passed for wisdom in his particular life-role and achieved the most basic understanding of his trade in order to refashion the game to suit his particular skills and his particular way of thinking.

I am fascinated by the whole concept of thinking. I love to explore the interactions between the conscious and the subconscious minds, both of which I believe operate on many levels of thinking simultaneously. I cannot believe that a person of Babe Ruth’s prodigious accomplishments can have had a dull mind, and in this novel, I explore the relationship between the very surface of the mind, which is apparent to all who come into contact with such an individual, and the computer-like complexity of the subconscious mind that allows the human body to work with such extreme precision in the mind-body partnership, making decisions which must require the processing of thousands of items of relevant and irrelevant data as it arrives at each micro-second decision.

It is my contention that all minds are complex, but that not all people are equally aware of the complexity of their thoughts. It has been fascinating to explore the imagery that the mind of the character, Babe Ruth, is processing at any given moment and to speculate on the amount of awareness that his conscious mind has of the various levels of thought by which he is living his life and plying his trade.

At the time at which the novel takes place, Babe Ruth is a man who has been exceptional in his field of endeavour to the point where he has re-thought the basics of his working milieu and has revised the way others approach that field of expertise. He has come to the point where there are indications that he is declining in his powers, and uses the occasion of a highly-pressured present-moment—a playoff game in Chicago in 1932—to re-examine the images of his life and life’s work in order to evaluate his accomplishment and to consider his future. His mind—at whatever level—chooses three present-moments in his life (1920, 1927 and 1932)—one of which he is living through as the images of the novel form (1932)—and arranges the images that he considers pertinent, in patterns that he considers to be revealing.

The text of the novel is rendered in the preconscious mode and it will be interesting for the reader to consider which of the levels of thought the main character is aware of and which levels of thought remain subconscious. Babe Ruth has been thought of, by some, as a man of little intellectual capacity; many lined up to study Albert Einstein’s brain after his death, but no one, so far as I know, suggested studying the mind of Babe Ruth as a model of eye-brain-hand coordination. Nevertheless, he must have had a mind with the complexity and the precision of a high-speed computer or he would not have been able to hit the ball with a consistency and accuracy which far surpassed that of other human beings. That he thought about more than just hitting the ball is the premise of this novel.

John Passfield

July 2011

Cayuga, Ontario, Canada

Chapter 1

Autumn 1

Wrigley Field, Chicago

October 1, 1932

Gettin’ a little older.

Diggin’ deep down inside.

Relyin’ on tape and rub-downs and liniments to get me through. Draggin’ an old body around, and shruggin’ off all of the cat-calls. Lovin’ the game so much that I force myself to keep on goin’.

Lookin’ for the next big hit to prove that I’m still in the game.

Standin’ in the batter’s box. Chicago. Wrigley Field. Third game of the World Series. I was in bed nearly dyin’ only two weeks ago. Fifty-one thousand fans. Two hundred and eleven thousand dollars at the gate. The Cubs are shiftin’ over to right-centre. Must know more’n I know if they know where I’m gonna hit. A lemon comes rollin’ at my feet. The fans are shoutin’ so loud that the noise is just a roar. Don’t know why they wanta throw them vegetables for. I can hardly hear a word that anybody’s shoutin’. Think I’ll step back out of the batter’s box and pick it up and toss it back.

I’ve soaked myself in baseball since I was a little kid. I’d play all day and only stop when you couldn’t see the ball. I’ve learned from every player I’ve ever come across: on the baseball diamonds, in the dugouts, in the club houses, in the restaurants, in the hotel lobbies and on the trains all over this country. I’ve got baseball in my bones and in my bloodstream. I’ve got every old-timer’s secrets in my brain. When I first came to New York, I parked my shiny new car and tossed my suit-jacket on the fender and played stick-ball with the kids I saw playin’ in the street.

Screwball / aggressive / strike zone / batting practice / front shoulder / newspapermen / tagging runner / outs per game / ice bag treatment / on-base percentage.

The fans are always shoutin’. Mostly, its just a roar from a long ways away. Sometimes, though, I swear I can hear every word.

Ruth! You stink!

Ruth! You’re washed up!

Ruth! You’re the oldest man in baseball!

Standin’ here in the batter’s box.

Cogitatin’ on what the next pitch is probably gonna be. Tryin’ not to be confused by a lotta things that I shouldn’t even be thinkin’ about. All I need is one good pitch.

I gotta concentrate so I ain’t cogitatin’ about all of this stuff that keeps botherin’ me. Just tryin’ to keep the old noggin focused on puttin’ the next one right outa the park.

There’s more newspaper guys here today than I think there’s ever been. The news guys is always askin’ me about all kinds of stuff.

So how do you like Chicago, Babe?

Have you had a good record here during your career?

Do you find the fans as friendly here as they are in New York?

Spring trainin’ was really tough this year.

I figured I’d play for maybe about two more seasons. I don’t wanta retire until I’ve played for twenty years. I’ve slowed down a bit, but I know I still got a lot to offer. I figure that last year was a pretty good year.

Be nice to retire as a twenty-year player and then be a manager for about another ten.

Miller Huggins’s sister told some newspaper guy that havin’ to manage me took five years off her brother’s life.

After I do retire from playin’, I’d like to be the manager of the Yankees.

Some of them newspaper guys is pretty tough on an old guy. I’m tryin’ as hard as I can, but they just ain’t gonna praise me no matter what. You’d think they’d give a guy credit for tryin’ at least. They treat everything you do like the trash that they throw on the floor.

Pretty hard to ignore it even if you want to. People read me them quotes whether I wanta hear ’em or not.

There comes a time when a writer has to admit that all of the old comparisons are hollow. In mythology, the hero goes on forever; in baseball, the hero grows old and tired. One hates to say this, but the best thing Babe Ruth can do for baseball, for his team and for himself, is to retire.

There’s an awful lotta things goin’ on. Things I see. Things I hear. In the newspapers, on the trains, in the hotel lobbies and on the bench. Somethin’ is always drawin’ my attention away from the game.

My wife, Helen, gettin’ burned to death in a hotel fire.

Chasin’ into the stands after a heckler and findin’ out he’s carryin’ a knife.

Lockin’ horns with Colonel Rupert and lookin’ stupid.

There’s lots of things that I know I shouldn’t be thinkin’ about. I gotta keep my concentration on my hittin’. That’s the only thing that matters to me now.

Some of them newspaper guys is pretty kind to an old guy. If I sneeze, they go and write it like I’m some kinda god. I like hittin’ home runs, but it’s more like I’m doin’ my job. It ain’t like I’m king of the earth or nothin’ like that.

I couldn’t keep from hearin’ about it even if I wanted to. People are always readin’ me them quotes that the newspapers say.

We no longer come to the ball park to see the exhibition of great skills or to witness records being broken. We come to see a great heart beating proudly in the breast of a faltering warrior in an age-old contest against ever-mounting odds. Babe Ruth is still the greatest attraction at the gate.

The home run race.

Jimmy Foxx got off to a great start. People always tellin’ me every time he hits another home run. I thought that it would be Lou that would be the one to give me a scare this year. Well, I ain’t gonna let these young guys beat me without I put up a pretty good fight.

There’s still a lotta baseball that’s gotta be played. I’ve always been strong in the stretch. Thirty-eight ain’t so old. Somewhere in these old bones there’s still the makin’s of a home run king.

Too bad me and Lou ain’t gettin’ along.

But it ain’t my fault. I ain’t the one that said somethin’ mean. Lou shouldn’t let his mother talk that way. Sayin’ she noticed Claire don’t dress me and Helen’s daughter as good as she dresses her own daughter. I always treated Lou’s mother fair and square.

That ain’t no way for a friend of the family to talk.

I can’t believe that Helen died in that fire.

The place she was livin’ in was a great big sheet of flames. Said so in the newspaper. I bought a paper just to read the story. I never thought that something like that was gonna happen when we broke up. Least I could do was pay for the funeral.

I wish I’d been there so I coulda done somethin’ to help.

Arrivin’ at the hotel in Chicago.

Holy smokes! Can you believe this crowd!

Comin’ here to Chicago to play this game. The squeal of the brakes as the taxi pulls up to the curb. Arrivin’ at the Edgewater Hotel and havin’ to fight our way through the crowds on the sidewalk. Knowin’ that I gotta give it everything I got. Gettin’ mad when the crowd spits on Claire.

How we gonna make our way through that mob?

Okay, so the game’s important, but why can’t them fans just leave the wives right out of it? Wonderin’ why they can’t concentrate on the game, like I do, and leave the side-show out of it. Not gettin’ side-tracked and tryin’ to punch somebody in the crowd.

They got a few police here, but I don’t think it’ll be enough!

Arrivin’ at the hotel in Chicago and bein’ surprised at the size of the crowd.

All of them times I worked so hard on my hittin’.

Addin’ thirty pounds to the swing of Shoeless Joe. Pulling ’em higher and harder than Shoeless Joe could ever do. Learnin’ from Shoeless Joe, all right, but standin’ on his shoulders as I’m learnin’.

Gettin’ a rise out of the Chicago bench. Shoutin’ back at ’em to sit back down and shut up. Charlie Root is doin’ the pitchin’. He’s having a pretty interestin’ game. Right now he’s probably thinkin’ that it ain’t much fun. Just give me somethin’ I can hit, Charlie, that’s all I’m askin’. Lou and me each have a homer in the game. Battin’ practice made them Chicago fans howl. Lou and me had a lotta fun smashin’ the ball into the bleachers. That’ll quiet the crowd down!.My first practice hit almost went over the top of the grandstand.

Base coaching / aggressive batter / long-ball hitter / calculations / transfer of energy / underhand toss / on plane / wide stance / thin handle / passed ball / soft stuff.

So how’s your health now, Babe?

Do you think it was appendicitis?

Do you think you’re in good enough shape to be able to play?

Spring trainin’ was really tough this year.

Thinkin’ of it as work, sometimes, instead of play. Takin’ my time walkin’ out to the outfield, instead of joggin’ out there like I used to always do when I was a kid. Thinkin’ of how hot it is out here in the outfield instead of bein’ eager to see if we can get ’em in a double-play.

Figurin’ that I got a couple of more good seasons in me if I can just work hard enough to get myself into playin’ shape.

I gotta be careful about my health and fitness from now on. All of them things I used to do, I can’t do no more. I gotta be nursin’ the old body along from game to game.

To bed at nine. Up at six. Runnin’ five miles a day to get in shape. Tryin’ to get the waistline down to under forty inches. I gotta keep after my weight. I been as low as one-eighty-five and as high as two-fifty-six. McGovern tells me I gotta stay below two-forty.

It’s a hell of a thing to always gotta be thinkin’ about your weight.

Christy Walsh is sure a great guy to look after all of the money and stuff for me.

Christy Walsh sayin’ Babe, your legendary status has made you the greatest money-maker in the game.

Me tellin’ Christy Walsh that I know I gotta get some hits. I ain’t goin’ down this easy. I ain’t gonna go game after game with hardly no hits. I know I ain’t been hittin’ like I used to do, but I’ve always been my strongest in the stretch.

The sad fact of aging is as old as the curse laid on Adam at the time of the Fall. There comes a time in every man’s life when his skills erode, his timing slips and his luster fades. That, sadly, is the case, at the present time, with the great Babe Ruth.

My old man hittin’ me with his belt when I took that money outa the till.

Cobb comin’ into second base with his spikes in the air.

Comin’ from behind in 1927 to beat Lou in the home run race.

As his long and distinguished career draws slowly to a close, there is one beacon that still shines high above the fray, one attribute that makes him stand out from the crowd: Babe Ruth is the mightiest slugger of them all.

I got a lot of aches and pains, but I ain’t gonna let ’em get me down.

Fightin’ our way across the sidewalk to the lobby of the Edgewater Hotel.

Tell somebody to clear a path! We can’t get through!

Why would anybody want to spit on my wife? The streets was full of fans. We could hardly move on the sidewalk. The whole team was pushin’ against the crowd. It took us about a half an hour just to get from the taxis that brought us from the station to the hotel lobby. Everybody was yellin’ and shoutin’ on the sidewalk.

Get them police to clear a pathway through the crowd!

Somebody spit on Claire. A great big gob of spit. I seen it happen. Everybody was yellin’ and shoutin’. Ruth, you’re just a bum! Ruth, you shoulda stayed home! I woulda busted some heads, but it was shoulder to shoulder and I could hardly move. What do people want to treat us like that for?

Hey! Some of these people is spittin’! Clear a path!

Fightin’ our way across the sidewalk and gettin’ spit on.

All of them times I worked so hard on my hittin’.

Not watchin’ no movies or readin’ no books. Knowin’ that doin’them things is only goin’ to ruin the eyes.

I was tryin’ to put her into the stands all through the warm-up. Nice to think the Cubs was watchin’. I put a whole lot of shots into the centre-field crowd. I told Lou to do the same and he sure-enough did. That should put ’em in their places! Make ’em sit up and take notice! Let ’em know the Yankees are in town! Warmin’ up. Catchin’ flies in the outfield. Everybody starts razzin’ me. Jokin’ with the crowd. Every once in a while somebody tosses a lemon. I pick ’em up and toss ’em back towards the crowd. Waitin’ for the game to start. Figurin’ I didn’t do too bad in battin’ warmup.

Styborski / comprehensive test / separate images / batting order / high pitch / fifty-four ounces / most home runs, lifetime / mcgovern’s gym / walking lead-off / cross-over step.

Are you thinking about retirement, Babe?

Do you think this could be your last year playing ball?

Are you aware that Ty Cobb has challenged you to a tournament of golf after you retire?

Spring trainin’ was really tough this year.

Goin’ down to Florida and waitin’ for the Colonel to come down and talk about the salary negotiations.

Some newspaper guy tellin’ me that I draw about twenty-five hundred extra customers for every Yankee game. Another newspaper guy tellin’ me that the profit from the exhibition games is enough to pay my salary every year. Another newspaper guy tellin’ me that I’ve earned the Colonel over three million dollars over the years.

Workin’ out in Florida, waitin’ for the Colonel to come down.

I ain’t sorry that old Cobb finally retired. Ty Cobb was the kinda ballplayer that I despise. Cobb was everything wrong with the way some guys play the game.

I gotta be careful about my health and fitness from now on.

Gettin’ in shape. Sendin’ in my measurements to Colonel Rupert. Gettin’ ready for salary negotiations.

Hopin’ he’ll see his way clear to give me a little raise.

Whoever told Miller Huggins’s sister that I shortened up his life was tellin’ a lie.

Even Hercules walked away when the time was right. Now the baseball Hercules must do the same. It is time for the Babe to rest on his laurels. What little he can achieve from now on will add but little to his stature. Watching him play has become very painful to his greatest fans.

Workin’ out at McGovern’s gym in the winter time.

Signin’ articles that are bein’ written by Christy Walsh.

Rememberin’ what it was like when I first came to New York.

Lazarus will have nothing on Babe Ruth when this season is over. What Big Bill Tilden couldn’t do on the tennis court, what Jack Dempsey couldn’t do in the ring, Babe Ruth will do this year: he will come back.

It’s amazin’ what you can do with a bottle of rubbin’ alcohol and a roll of bandages.

Bein’ escorted into the lobby of the Edgewater Hotel.

They gonna show us up to our rooms?

In the lobby of the hotel. Wipin’ the spot off Clarie’s coat with my handkerchief and boilin’ inside. Buildin’ up steam for playin’ the game. Thinkin’ I can’t wait for the game to start. Deciding that I’ll make them fans cheer me before the game is over.

They got all the reporters here!

Talkin’ to the reporters in the lobby of the hotel. I know they’re only doin’ their job, but you’d think at least they’d figure we should be allowed to go to our rooms. It’s been a long trip on the train, and I wouldn’t mind takin’ a break before we answer all of these questions.

They want us to talk to the press before we go to our rooms!

Pushin’ and shovin’ with the crowd and tryin’ to make our way across the lobby of the hotel.

Standin’ right here in the batter’s box. Focusin’ on puttin’ the next one right out of the park.

I hit nine of ’em into the stands. Lou didn’t do too bad neither. He hit seven. Fun to watch the boo-birds scramble out there in the bleachers. Jockeyin’ with the Cubs. I’d play for half my salary if I could hit in this dump all the time!. You big fat nobody!. If I had you on my team, I’d hitch you to a beer wagon!. Gomez sure made me laugh. Looks good for you, Babe. With that wind, even I could hit a home run today. Gomez musta forgot he was a pitcher. Pitchers who ain’t playin’ always think today’s the day they coulda hit.

Double-play / overthrow / woods / throwing to the bases / knee bend / medium handle / open stance / stamina / home runs / sultan of swat.

Were you surprised to hear about the sudden death of Miller Huggins?

Did the death of your first wife affect your play?

What exactly is your relationship with Lou Gehrig, Babe?

Spring trainin’ was really tough this year.

The things that them newspaper guys write sometimes. What are them people thinkin’? I done a lotta things, but if I had every steak, every drink, every late night and every woman that those people say I had, I couldna done the things I’ve done on the baseball diamond.

Some of them people don’t even seem to think I’m human.

I gotta be careful about my health and fitness from now on.

Gettin’ in shape. Gettin’ ready to play. Workin’ four hours a day in McGovern’s gym.

I don’t mind all of this gettin’ in shape. Most of the things I used to eat I didn’t care about anyway. It was just all there in front of me, and the whole world was sayin’ go ahead and eat your fill. You can have anything you want. You can have anything your little old heart desires.

Some people is surprised that I can work out and watch my weight and go to bed early. Hell, I ain’t givin’ up nothin’ that was important to me. They don’t realize that all my little old heart desires is to play good ball.

Sometimes the great ones need a little nudge in the right direction. At the next player-appreciation day, I suggest that the fans give Babe Ruth a rocking chair. Perhaps this would be a subtle-enough hint for the Babe.

Tryin’ to remember Waite Hoyt’s first name when