Baseball Can Make You Cry

Babe Ruth Farewell

It Makes Us Cry

A few weeks ago I posted a description of the Lou Gehrig heart breaking farewell. Today, it is only right to give equal space to Babe Ruth’s final Yankee Stadium good bye.

On June 13, 1948, nine years after Gehrig’s emotional farewell, 50,000 Yankee fans gathered at Yankee Stadium to honor Babe Ruth and the 25^th anniversary of his first homerun in the House That Ruth Built. It was dismal rainy afternoon.

The Great Bambino. who had smashed 714 home runs during his career, walked slowly, and was a shadow of himself – the 53 year old Babe was dying of cancer.

After giving recognition of former Yankees players in attendance and to many whom had passed away, the Babe Ruth walked slowly from the dugout to home plate. The applause was deafening as Ruth appeared. The Indians' Eddie Robinson handed him a bat to use as a cane as Babe joined his former teammates who were lined up along the third base line. W.C. Heinz wrote that Ruth “walked out into the cauldron of sound he must have known better than any other man”

New York City Mayor William O’Dwyer spoke for a few minutes and introduced “Babe Ruth, the hero of all our baseball days.” Ruth himself spoke for just a few minutes. The inoperable esophageal cancer made his voice horse, and it hurt to talk. “I am proud I hit the first home run here in 1923,” Ruth said. “It was marvelous to see 13 of 14 players who were my teammates going back 25 years. I’m telling you it makes me proud and happy to be here.”

Nat Fein, a 33-year-old photographer from the New York Herald-Tribune, watched the ceremony. Ruth held tightly to his makeshift cane in one hand and a Yankees cap in the other. “He looked tired, very tired.”

This would be his last visit to Yankee Stadium. He died on August 16. Nat Fein’s photograph (above), which appeared on Page 1 of the Herald-Tribune on June 14, won a Pulitzer Prize. Life magazine in 1999 described the photo, titled “The Babe Bows Out,” as “one of the greatest pictures of the 20th century.”

Grantland Rice is recognized as one of the greatest sports writer of the twentieth century. He penned the following poem on the day of Ruth’s death.

Game Called by darkness — let the curtain fall.
No more remembered thunder sweeps the field.
No more the ancient echoes hear the call
To one who wore so well both sword and shield:
The Big Guy’s left us with the night to face
And there is no one who can take his place.

Game Called — and silence settles on the plain.
Where is the crash of ash against the sphere?
Where is the mighty music, the refrain
That once brought joy to every waiting ear?
The Big Guy’s left us lonely in the dark
Forever waiting for the flaming spark.

Game Called — what more is there for us to say?
How dull and drab the field looks to the eye
For one who ruled it in a golden day
Has waved his cap to bid us all good-bye.
The Big Guy’s gone — by land or sea or foam
May the Great Umpire call him “safe at home.”