Babe Ruth and the Notched Bat
Children smiling. Fans cheering. Teammates clapping. The Babe is trotting.
Round the bases he goes. Head down. Gently touching every base.
He touches them all. And tips his cap.
The crowd is happy. Babe has walloped another homerun. And they have seen it. They will never forget the moment.
The batboy hands Babe his bat. It is like a close friend. He holds it firmly, yet gently. His bat is special.
Babe’s motto: “I swing big. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can.”
Babe Ruth loved to hit BIG homeruns. And lots of them.
“I can’t keep track of all the homeruns I hit,” Babe said.
He then had a big idea.
“I know what I’ll do. For every homerun I hit, I’ll carve a notch on my bat.”
Eddie Bennett, the Yankees’ batboy, liked the idea. “A notch for every homerun. No one’s ever done that before.”
Babe chuckled. He grinned ear to ear. He couldn’t wait to hit again.
The next inning, his chance came.
Eddie handed Babe his Louisville Slugger bat. “Knock the cover off the ball, slugger,” he said.
“You bet, kid,” Babe replied. Babe swaggered up to the left side of home plate. His feet close together. His toes turned in a bit. The batter’s box was like home to Babe. He lifted his bat above his shoulders.
Gritted teeth on the pitcher’s face. He rocked back and forth. The pitch was delivered.
The ball sped through the air like a bullet. The catcher’s glove flexed with anticipation.
The bat twitched in Babe’s hands.
“Ball one!” the umpire proclaimed.
Babe glanced back at Eddie the batboy. A wink.
Eddie looked as excited as Babe felt.
Babe stepped out of the batter’s box. He studied his bat. His eyes twinkled. He located the perfect spot for the first notch.
Into the batter’s box again. Babe readied himself for the pitch.
The pitcher threw the baseball.
Babe launched his swing.
Bat and ball collide.
Powerful blast!
The ball streaked high into the air! Up, up and over the right field fence.
A towering homerun!
On their feet, the crowd cheered.
On the mound, the pitcher’s head hung low. He then locked eyes with Babe.
“You just became a notch on my bat!” Babe exclaimed. Babe trotted and stepped on home plate. The next batter, Lou Gehrig, shook his hand. Babe ran toward Eddie. “Let’s go carve that notch. Let the counting of homeruns begin!” Babe roared with a laugh.
In the corner of the dugout, Eddie handed Babe his pocketknife.
Babe studied the bat again. “I know this won’t hurt you, my friend,” he said to his bat. “I would never do anything to hurt you.” Babe gently opened the knife. He carved a notch over the Louisville Slugger logo. “May this be the first of many notches,” Babe said.
“If I know you,” said Eddie, the bay boy, “it will be.”
Babe carefully closed the knife. He handed it back to Eddie. “I’m with you, kid,” he said.
Big swings and some strikeouts
Big swings and more homeruns.
“You just became another notch on my bat!” Babe jeered, to each pitcher every time he hit a homerun.
“Babe Ruth: 21 Notches on His Bat!” The news spread throughout the league.
Fear on pitcher’s hearts.
The spectrum of 21-hand-carved notches looked like beams of light bouncing off the Louisville Slugger oval trademark. They were a spectacle to behold.
Babe entered the batter’s box. “You’re gonna be another notch on my bat,” Babe predicted to the pitcher.
The pitcher shook his head. Silence. He punched the ball into his right-handed glove. He raked the dirt in front of the pitcher’s mound with his shoe. Head cocked left. Eyes targeted on the catcher’s mitt. The wind up began. The ball hurdled through the air…
Babe grinned. He swung. The bat bashed the ball!
CRACK!
The ball sailed foul into the seats. A little boy jumped and caught it happily.
Babe bent down. He picked his bat up off the dirt. His fears confirmed. “I’m so sorry, my friend,” he said, sadly.
The bat was cracked.
“I’d never do anything to hurt you.” Babe held his bat gently. He remembered all the good times they shared. “You served me well. Maybe the good people who made you can fix you.”
Babe delicately handed the bat to Eddie who presented him with a new one.
“Keep it safe, kid. We’re sending it back to Louisville.”
Eddie held it carefully -- one hand on the barrel and the other on the handle. He walked toward the bench. And put the bat in a special place in the dugout.
“Looks like I won’t be a notch on your bat after all!” the pitcher said to Babe. “You’ll be lucky if you get to first base!”
“Don’t count on it. I have a new bat,” Babe replied. “Besides, I plan on touching all four bases. I go for homeruns! If I tried for them dinky singles, I could bat six hundred!”
And go for homeruns Babe did. He hit 60 of them that year -- 1927. It was a record that stood for 35 years. The bat Babe used to hit that 60th homerun he called Beautiful Bella. There were no notches on Beautiful Bella, but she was still a special friend to him.
Good friends, after all, will always help us accomplish wonderful things.
THE END
Post Game Report
The home run was Babe Ruth’s trademark. His powerful, lightning-quick swing connected with a multitude of Major League fastballs. Just as gunslingers in the old West carved notches in their side arms, Babe Ruth began carving small notches into his special weapon, representative of the home run hit with that particular bat.
Babe Ruth carved homerun notches on four baseball bats that are known to exist. The 1927 Louisville Slugger bat featured in this story is on display at the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. The other baseball bat Babe used sometime during the 1920s has 28 notches carved on it and is the property of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. The other two bats have 11 and 8 notches carved on them and are owned by private collectors.
Eddie Bennett was the Yankees batboy and team mascot in 1927. He and Babe Ruth were friends.
Babe Ruth’s season homerun record was broken in 1961 by Roger Maris who hit 61 homers that year. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa broke that record in 1998 with 70 and 66 homeruns, respectively. Barry Bonds broke the season homerun record in 2001 with 73 homeruns that season. But Babe Ruth is still known and loved around the world as the “Homerun King.”
Baseball Highlights:
George Herman “Babe” Ruth
Born: February 6, 1895, Baltimore, Maryland
Died: August 16, 1948, New York, New York
Bats: left
Throws: left
Played for: Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Boston Braves
Height: 6’-2”
Weight: 215 pounds
Homeruns: 714
Strikeouts: 1,330
Famous Babe Ruth Quotes:
"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way."
"The only real game, I think, in the world is baseball."
"It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up."
"I thank heaven we have had baseball in this world... the kids... our national pastime."
"I've never heard a crowd boo a homer, but I've heard plenty of boos after a strikeout."
"I won't be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat."
"Baseball was, is and always will be to me the best game in the world."
"All I can tell them is pick a good one and sock it. I get back to the dugout and they ask me what it was I hit and I tell them I don't know except it looked good."
"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."
"If I'd tried for them dinky singles I could've batted around six hundred."
"How to hit home runs: I swing as hard as I can, and I try to swing right through the ball...The harder you grip the bat, the more you can swing it through the ball, and the farther the ball will go. I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can."
------------------
For Dad,
R.J.S.
Photo caption: Babe Ruth carved 21 notched around the trademark of this Louisville Slugger bat in 1927 before he cracked the handle. One notch for each homerun. This priceless original artifact is on display at the Louisville Slugger Museum.
|
Visit the Robert Skead book collection at: |
 |
|
