“Lou Gehrig: The Misplaced Memoir,” by historian Alan D. Gaff, features a assortment of first-person syndicated newspaper columns by the Yankees legend himself. That is an excerpt.
The so-called “house run derby” of 1927 is over.
The winner is Babe Ruth. And nobody is happier than myself.
In the course of the season, the newspapers have been greater than variety to me. They've in contrast me to the Babe; they've known as me the “new house run king”; they've given me the kindliest type of criticism.
For which I'm grateful — however — and that is trustworthy — I by no means anticipated to beat the Babe in honors, and I by no means anticipated to interrupt that 1921 file. In spite of everything is claimed and achieved, there is only one Babe. He stands alone and incomparable. He's the best slugger of all time, and in my humble opinion, there'll by no means be one other like him.
Until he breaks it himself, I consider that the 1921 file of fifty-nine house runs in a season will stand endlessly. I hope it does.*
I owe a lot to the Babe. He has suggested me and taught me and helped me greater than I can inform. At occasions in the course of the season, once I was main him in house runs, the opinion prevailed that there was a feud between Babe and myself. Nothing could possibly be farther from the reality. After I would hit one, Babe can be the primary to congratulate me.
In non-public and in public, he has all the time been my greatest booster.
And I actually consider he's as delighted once I reach breaking a file or establishing a brand new mark as I'm myself. There's nothing small, nothing egocentric in regards to the Babe.
And now a phrase about house run hitting. If the ball goes within the bleachers, nicely and good. If it goes for a single that scores a run, higher nonetheless. I'm happy with my file for driving in runs. I believe I've a proper to be. And if I dwell to be ninety and play baseball each day of that point, I'll nonetheless get a thrill once I pound out a success that sends a run over the plate.
However I'm not a rival of the Babe. To contemplate myself one can be presumptuous. There is just one Babe Ruth, and by no means earlier than has there been a participant who might hit a ball as far or as steadily. He stands alone.
And don’t overlook this.
Babe Ruth is one thing else apart from a house run hitter. He is a superb ballplayer. Babe would moderately see the Yankees win a ball recreation than to hit 5 house runs and lose. If a state of affairs arises which calls for a sacrifice, the Babe will do it willingly and gladly. Many occasions I’ve seen him go up there and shorten his stride and minimize his swing in a frank effort to hit the ball simply over the infield. I’ve seen him take strikes proper by the center, so that a steal is perhaps put over or a play made that might assist win the ball recreation.
Does that sound like he was out for house runs, with out regard to workforce welfare or workforce play?
Not by an extended shot, it doesn’t. And he isn’t.
He hits house runs as a result of he is a superb hitter. When he will get maintain of 1, it simply naturally sails out of the park.
Some of us suppose the Babe can do nothing else however hit. That’s amusing. He’s an awesome ballplayer in each sense. He can throw, he can run, he can area. There isn't a smarter participant within the recreation — no participant with keener baseball intuition or higher baseball judgment.
To speak of me, or anybody else, rivaling the Babe is to snicker. All I hope to do is simply the perfect I can. If I've a superb 12 months and hit plenty of homers, I’m pleased. But when I don’t, it’s fairly all proper.
As far as I'm involved, the Babe’s file is protected. He's the best of the good — and I truthfully consider that the one man who ever has an opportunity of breaking his file is Babe Ruth himself.
(*Editor’s word: Two days after this was written Ruth hit house runs No. 58 and 59, and the day after he hit his 60th of the 1927 season, a file that stood for 33 years.)
I'm proud to be an enormous league ballplayer and proud to affiliate with the lads who make skilled baseball. I consider that baseball is an actual career, worthy of the perfect that any man may give. In my expertise as a ballplayer, I've discovered nothing to be ashamed of, nothing that was not throughout the bounds of excellent judgment and good sportsmanship.
I gave up school to take up baseball — and I don't take into account my efforts wasted. I’m glad I attended school, and I’m proud to be often called a school man. However I don’t subscribe to the old style thought {that a} school man belittles himself when he goes in for a profession of faculty athletics. I don’t consider I'd have met a finer group of males wherever than I've met in baseball. Nor a squarer, fairer lot of males, both.
In fact, I'm only a child on the recreation, and I understand it. I nonetheless have a lot to be taught, and I hope I nonetheless have a few years during which to be taught it. However this I do know, that baseball is at this time and would be the best recreation on the earth.
And if I ever get married and have any sons who present promise of actual baseball capacity, I can solely hope that skilled baseball will supply them as a lot because it has provided me, and deal with them as kindly.
As for the years that lie forward, I can solely hope for the perfect. If I succeed or if I fall, if I’m a star or a flop, there can no less than be this stated: I’ll give the perfect I've, play the perfect I can, do the perfect I can. And that, I believe, is the spirit of each man in skilled baseball at this time.
It has been my success to interrupt into the sport at a time when a few of the best of all stars had been enjoying. There'll by no means be one other Babe Ruth. He stands alone and incomparable.
And I doubt if there'll ever be one other Ty Cobb.
However there'll all the time be nice ballplayers as long as youngsters can discover sandlots on which to mark off a diamond; and baseball can by no means develop much less honorable as long as those self same youngsters look to the large league stars as their heroes.
After I got here into baseball, I used to be a inexperienced child who knew nothing in regards to the recreation.
Older males befriended me and helped me and suggested me. I'll always remember their kindness. And maybe sometime I’ll have an opportunity to repay them by passing that very same recommendation and that very same assist on to kids who come alongside whereas I'm an everyday.
I hope I could possibly just do that.
From “Lou Gehrig: The Misplaced Memoir” by Alan D. Gaff. Copyright © 2020 by Alan Gaff. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
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