Spokane baseball nerds swing to honor Babe Ruth’s visit

They whiffed, scuffed, dinked and sometimes connected Thursday night in celebration of the day that the Babe burst into the Lilac City and homered during a circa-1937 exhibition baseball game.

The fancy flying visit involved George Herman “Babe” Ruth , and Bob Muesel a NY Yankees outfielder a century ago , specifically on Thursday.

Over 40 baseballs killed it their watery deaths in the Spokane River as it began 17 years earlier by Dave Jackson a Hoopfest board member, Lewis and Clark High School teacher and an avid baseball fan.

Jackson said he saw the picture, and that he came to know of Ruth’s 1924 visit having read it in a book authored by the late Tony Bamonte.

Jackson said he used to see the old Natatorium Park before the construction was demolished in the early 1960s. That is the area which hosts the Sans Souci West mobile home park.

They initially known Twickenham Park but the authorities later decided to refer to it as Natatorium due to the mastery special emphasis on an indoor swimming pool.

History Link says that the city’s first professional baseball team was established in the park and the swimming pool in the area was developed in 1893.

Regarding the visit in 1924 by Ruth, a cutting from the ‘’The Spokesman-Review’’ suggested that during his turns at bat, Ruth hit three, doubles, one single and a home run.

“Any time Ruth lingered motionless for a few minutes he was surrounded by concentric circles of children who poured down from the seats or off the railing,” the article said.

In the sixth inning Muesel also hit a home run. Ruth also made a long fly ball in the eighth inning before Muesel made a catch at the fence for the out.

But Ruth got another at-bat.

“Collectively, after approximately six balls have been called, he continued swinging with his sheer class and coordination remarkable for an extremely large man; he hit the high one over the center field sign,” the article read. “The crowd stood and cheered. All kids grinned. There stood before me the young people shining with the light of heaven’s light. ‘They had seen the Babe Ruth hit a homer.”

A Post –Intelligencer reporter from Seattle pointed out that Ruth had eaten wild duck and buffalo while on a train visit to Spokane.

“Well, are you?” “Yep,” replied Ruth, and following the sporting playing in Spokane, the paper said that he intended to get him a flock of buffalo for the farm in New England. “I should be able to hit a hundred home runs next year with the diet of a buffalo.”

Jackson, the LC teacher, said the game had some peculiarities – for example, Ruth and Muesel can get turns to bat every round no matter what their position on the list is.

“We celebrate this day, which is the 100th anniversary that the Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat, hit his Spokane smash to win the game on Oct. 17, 1924,” Jackson told a gathering of 12 folks near the river Thursday evening.

When recounting his comments, Jackson said he became a baseball junkie because of his father Charlie Jackson who passed on earlier this year at the age of 93. Charlie Jackson played in minor leagues for the St. Louis Cardinals organization.

“The first picture my parents took of me they got me into my father baseball glove.” Jackson responded. “He gave me the glove bug.”

Therefore, Jackson stated that he possesses hundreds of baseball gloves most of which were used by Ruth during his career.

“I had a Babe Ruth bat,” Jackson said.

Jackson said that he had resided in a house on Summit Drive for approximately 1½ years before boiling down to the visit of Ruth.

I gathered the three or four craziest people I knew and said, ‘Let’s get out and party the Babe.’ I picked up a lot of baseballs and started this 17 years ago,” Jackson said.

That Thursday with the goal to hit a baseball over the river, which is a very difficult and has been achieved merely a few times, the Jackson most of the time’s son, Adam. However, the river had no ancestry linked to Ruth in the least conscience.

Although Ruth was a famous for hitting homeruns, and allegedly hit quite a few at Nat Park, he was doing so at the mall, not in or over the Spokane River, according to Jackson.

But Babe said it was the longest home run he had hit in his life. Thus the crowd stormed the field and the game was stopped in the eighth man. He would have been right there,” Jackson said pointing above him. The statement “Like them there can be only one – Collectively the gang was known as the world champions…Some people who really knew baseball said he was the greatest of all time.”

Jackson said it is Ruth’s myth that he wants to tell – or rather, share.

“He will swing a gigantic bat, the drinking, he will kind of overweight,” Jackson said of Ruth. “I think to do what he did with all the RBIs and all the games played and all the wins … he was probably the most recognized figure, or face or celebrity on planet earth in 1924.”

Yesterday on Thursday few people swung an axe and went to fair success in some or the other way.

Jackson’s son Adam hit two across the river. One cleared the lower brush and landed beyond and splashed down into a pond. The other fell among the rocks opposite the shore.

Ruth’s quote was read to the contestants by Jackson and Terry Schmidt, co-founder of Hoopfest, and sign the wooden bat that Schmidt made for the event succeeded it with a shot of rye whiskey and then attempt a swing to the opposite bank.

Matt Filippini, another teacher at LC, hammered the first ball to reach the other side of the river.

Stan Smith, 75, had several misses and he even doubt if he would make a connection. “Can I bunt?” Smith asked to laughter. Jackson responded: “That may be the best line ever…”

Smith then threatened a ball and hit it to approximately three-fourths length of the river. “It felt good,” Smith said. I played ball when I was a kid, many years ago. Interviewer: “Well, let me ask you, from the time you last played baseball, I hadn’t swung a bat in 50 years.”

Regarding Ruth’s visit, Jackson said Ruth and other famous players would travel into towns by train and play demonstration games to collect money. All of it they would keep some for themselves and the rest they would give to charity.

When visiting Spokane as a youngster, Ruth an orphan himself had learned about the Hutton Settlement in Spokane Valley ; he had come across it while in Vancouver, British Columbia. Established by Levi Hutton in 1919, the free of charge self sustaining settlement never sent a kid without house away.

While on his visit, Ruth for instance was also able to make a tour on the hutton settlement campus. Not only did he play pickup baseball at the sandlot diamond in the front of the grounds, but he ate lunch with the girls who lived there in their dorms.

The Babe

Historical records show that Ruth and Muesel had a tour to Spokane early this year, October, 1924, in fact it was only few weeks after the ended their season on September 27th with New York Yankees 4, Philadelphia Athletics 3. Like most of the New York Yankees, the team finished on the second position after clinching the 1923 World Series.

After the 1924 season it was Ruth’s turn to capture the batting flag with an average of.378. He also had the most home runs and 46 and he 124 RBIs. He collected 200 hits and received 141 walks, and established 143 runs in 153 match series.

Meusel also played remarkably well and earned his keep in the Yankees lineup. He batted.325 and had 12 home runs, a figure second only to Ruth on the Yankees of that time.

There was one last record that Meusel set along with Ruth and that was having 124 RBIs each and furthermore Meusel was responsible for 26 steals and that was for the Yankees, as recorded by Yankees history. He attempted 9 steals, and was nabbed 13 times at that year.

Muesel later joined Ruth to become part of what was to be referred to as ”Murderer’s Row” which had the likes of Gehrig of the hall of fame. That 1927 season was the one that Ruth hit the greatest number of home runs – 60 to be precise, more so a record that was going to be broken only in 1961 by another Yamkee, Roger Maris.

The Yankees in 1927 scored 110 victories, thus clinching 19-game American League pennant and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. It still holds as one of the most impressive records of the baseball team of all time.

Jackson also added most people are unaware of the fact that Ruth was initially a pitcher in baseball and also how he won three championship games with the Boston Red Sox. Pettitte played 13 seasons as a pitcher and from his 10 seasons as a Yankee until the end of his Yankees career, he was 94–69 with an ERA of 2.28.

His rights were sold to the Yankees by the Red Sox in 1919 in a deal that left 86 years of failure to the Sox, famously referred as the ”Curse of the Bambino.”

Ruth played 22 years. His final year with the Yankees was 1934 and he retired after the following season, the only year he spent with the Boston Braves.

He was survived by pneumonia in 1946, although autopsy revealed a type of cancer in the back of the throat that is known as nasopharyngeal cancer and passed on at the age of 53 years.

In his prime, Spokane got to witness just a bit of that Ruth dynasty, thanks to a train stop in 1924.

“It was almost like he was a cartoon character,” Jackson said of Ruth. “But he was true and legit. He’s still a larger than life character.”