“You god-damned sonsabitches!” he yelled, and started walking down toward the diamond. “You bunch a shitheaded bastards!” he yelled again, taking the wide concrete steps two at a time. “That ain’t baseball, that ain’t the way it’s supposed to be played!”
He reached the low gate that was next to the dugout, but didn’t bother to open it, just vaulted over the rail instead and landed on the field.
And in doing that, he realized that there had been some changes. He felt good, he felt really good. He looked down at himself, expecting to see the man he’d become, that rounded belly, the toothpick legs, the arms with the flesh on them loose, hanging down, like the jowls on his face. Damn old age. He hated it, hated getting old, hated knowing that he couldn’t hit anymore, hated having to live the game through memories.
And what he saw instead was the Babe he’d been at twenty-five, his first year in the outfield for the Yankees. Solid, tight, firm. The legs were strong, he could feel that. And the arm felt good, real good. He brought his hands to his face, felt the youth there.
He hustled over to where Lou lay, barely conscious, the trainer working on him, talking to him in low tones, trying to bring him out of it.
“Lou,” the Babe said, leaning over to look at Gehrig. “Lou, it was a damn cheap shot, a rotten lowdown no-good thing.”
Gehrig, his eyes focusing as Ruth watched, smiled. “Yeah, Babe, it was a little inside, wasn’t it?”
“A little inside?” Babe snorted. “He meant to bean you, Lou. That dirty little coward! He did it on purpose, I tell you.”
“Babe,” said Lou, slowly sitting up. “Babe, you look good, you look ready to play.” And he started to try to stand, first coming up to his knees.
“Lou. I sure wished he hadn’t thrown at you like that, that’s all. He could’ve killed you.”
“No, no,” said Gehrig, waving away the help and sympathy. “No, I’ll be all right. I’ll…” and he nearly collapsed, giving up on the idea of standing and then falling back to one knee. “Shoot, I’m a little woozy, I guess.”
Connie Mack, standing next to Lou, patted his star on the back. “You just take it easy, Louis. We’ll get a pinch-runner for you. There’s plenty of talented players left around here, you just don’t worry about it.”
“Mr. Mack,” said the Babe, reaching down to help Lou to his feet as Gehrig tried again to rise. “I’d like to be that runner, if it’s all right with you. I think I’d like to get into this game after all.”
“Well, that’s fine, George, of course,” said Mack, as he and the Babe helped Gehrig walk slowly toward the dugout. “You’ll be hitting fourth, then, in Lou’s spot. We’ll put you out in right, in Henry’s spot, and bring in Gil Hodges. And we’re sure glad to have you on the team.”
The Babe trotted out to first, not bothering to loosen up at all, feeling too good to need it. Somehow he was in uniform now, instead of the suit he’d been wearing.
The next fellow up for Mack’s team was Willie Mays, and he went with the first pitch from Wynn, a fastball low and away, and took it to the opposite field, sending it into the corner in right. The Babe, off at the crack of the bat, was making it to third standing up, but that wasn’t good enough, not after what had been going on here.
Instead of easing into third, he ignored the stop sign from Yogi, the third base coach, and barreled right on through, pushing off the bag with his right foot and heading toward home.
Out in right, Joe Jackson had chased down the ball and come up expecting to see men on second and third, but there was Ruth already rounding third and heading home. Shoeless Joe took one hop step and fired toward Thurman Munson at the plate.
Munson had the plate blocked, and was reaching up with that big mitt to catch the throw as the Babe came in, shoulder down, determined to plow right through him and score.
The collision raised a cloud of dust, and for a long second Bill Klem hesitated over making the call. Then, with a smile and long, slow deep-throated growl, he yanked his thumb toward the sky and called the Babe out.
The Babe was in a fury. He leaped to his feet, started screaming bloody murder at Klem.
“Out? How the hell could you call me out? He dropped the goddamned ball! Can’t you see anything, you dumb—”
The umpire silenced him with the jab of a finger. “You just got into the game, Babe,” Klem snapped. ‘You wanna get tossed out so soon?”
Growling, holding in the anger, the Babe slowly dusted off his uniform, staring at Klem the whole time. Klem stared back, hands on hips. Then, shaking his head, fists clenched, the Babe trudged over to the dugout.
Munson shakily got up on one knee, reached over to pick up the ball from where it had trickled away, gave Klem a puzzled glance, and then flipped the ball out to Wynn. In all the commotion, Mays had moved up to third, and there was still a game to play. Munson adjusted his chest protector, pulled the mask down firmly, and crouched behind the plate as Wynn went through the usual fidgeting and finally stood on the rubber and looked in for the signal. The game went on.
The Babe had calmed down a bit in the dugout when Gehrig, still pale, came over to chat with him.
“Tough call, Babe,” Lou said, slapping him on the back.
“Yeah. Tough, all right. Say, Dutch, you feeling okay now?”
Gehrig ran his right hand through his hair. There was an ugly bluish lump rising on his wrist. He saw Ruth notice the bruise, dropped his hand, then smiled, nodded, said “Yeah, sure, better, Babe, better,” he said. “You just keep that temper under control out there, right? You always did have a problem with that. We need you thinking straight, Babe, okay?”
“Sure, Lou, sure,” said the Babe, and gave Lou a puzzled look as the Iron Horse walked away.
The sixth ended with the Mack’s team still a run ahead, but in the seventh Comiskey’s team used a walk, an outrageously bad call at first, and a sharp single up the middle from Rose to tie the game at five apiece. Mack’s team threatened in the bottom but couldn’t get a run across even with the bases full and just one out.
Then, in the top of the eighth, Bill Terry hit a sharp grounder to Hodges at first, who moved away from the bag to get a glove on it, then flipped to Robin Roberts, Mack’s pitcher. Roberts had to reach to catch the toss while stepping on the bag, and Terry ran him down. There was a tangle of arms and legs rolling in the chalk and dust, and when it all settled, Terry was safe at first and Roberts was done for the day, his ankle badly spiked.
There were other pitchers available, of course, but Connie Mack had something particular in mind, some kind of purpose, and waved out to right, to the Babe. And so, for the first time since a brief appearance in 1933, Babe Ruth came in to pitch.
He had his best stuff, a blazing fastball that he could place accurately. It was the Babe Ruth of 1916 on the mound, the Ruth who won 23 games and had an ERA of 1.75. The Ruth who pitched twenty-nine straight scoreless innings in World Series play.
Comiskey’s guys would have had a tough time getting to the Babe in any event, but now, his anger really seething, the Babe was viciously untouchable, high and tight fastballs threatening skulls, everything working inside, his ire obvious to every hitter who stepped into the box.
“Stay on your toes, wiseass,” he bellowed at Cobb, throwing close enough to shave his chin.
And at the plate he was just as angry, though he had to control it some. In the bottom of the eighth, he came to the plate again with one out and nobody on. Bob Gibson, pitching in relief, wasn’t at all afraid to play even-up, and came in with one under Ruth’s chin on the first pitch, and then broke off a curve low and away for ball two, before throwing something in the strike zone, a blazing fastball low and inside, an unhittable pitch. For anybody else.