103. A Tale of 4 Ruths

While working on the previous Babe Ruth post, after I drew the '34 All-Americans uniform on him, I wanted to see what that drawing would look like in the colors of other teams The Babe played with. Clockwise from the top left is: 1938 Brooklyn Dodgers from his time as a Dodger coach, 1927-30 New York Yankees, 1935 Boston Braves and 1923 Barnstorming uniform.

102. Beibu Rusu: The Babe In Japan

When my buddy Charlie Vascellaro and I were taking the Babe Ruth Museum Traveling Exhibit around the country back in '02, one of the best things about the job was the personal stories people were constantly telling us about their own, or someone they knew, had with The Babe. Most of the stories culminated in getting the cherished autograph of the big man. I don't think anyone else in the history of the world signed their own name as much as The Babe. In a day and age where guys like Barry Bond will deliberately ignore young children politely asking for a signature (I witnessed it myself, it was an episode that still turns my stomach), the stories of The Babe delaying the departure of the Yankees' team bus on a humid summer afternoon because he couldn't bring himself to leave until every scrap of paper handed to him by little children and blushing adults had his signature on it. I often wondered what went through The Babe's mind as he signed ball after ball, had his meals interrupted by a request to sign a cocktail napkin or confronted a typical day's mail delivery that held countless requests for that most famous of autographs.

I think The Babe looked on it as his obligation to the people who made him famous, a small price to pay for the love, money and adulation he now received and that his childhood so tragically lacked. We've all seen the newsreel footage of him standing on a ledge in New York, tossing brand-new baseballs with his signature to hundreds of screaming fans in the street. He's laughing so hard at the joy his autograph gave the people below. After re-watching this footage once, I realized how many hours he must have sat in a room and signed ball after ball.

Earlier this week, as I was devouring Rob Fitts' new book "Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball Espionage & Assassination During the 1934 Tour of Japan", I read a great passage about how The Babe was relaxing one night in his suite at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo when there was a knock at the door. An old Japanese man in a kimono bowed and handed a ball to The Babe: "sign please". The old man didn't have a pen so The Babe went back into his suite and got his own which he used to sign the ball and returned it to the old man. The old man bowed in thanks and out from his kimono sleeve rolled another ball. "Sign please" said the old man and The Babe signed the second ball. The old man bowed again and out rolled a third ball: "sign please" and The Babe did again. As Ruth's wife and daughter watched laughing, The Babe and the old man repeated the same drill more than a dozen times until there were no more balls to sign and the old man bowed and left. As Fitts writes "the amused Ruth took it in stride."

So this week I just wanted to pay tribute to Babe Ruth and how something so simple and free as his signature could bring so much happiness to so many people, as well as introduce you to a really spectacular book, the aforementioned "Banzai Babe Ruth." I've written about the 1934 Tour of Japan in my stories on Moe Berg, Eiji Sawamura and Victor Starffin and Fitt's book brings them all together in a great tale of baseball, spying and murder. I haven't read a baseball book this good in a very long time I can't recommend it enough. Here is what Rob has to say about his new book:

Nearly 500,000 screaming fans lined the streets of Tokyo on November 2, 1934, to welcome Babe Ruth and his team of American all stars to Japan. The line of open limousines held one of the greatest baseball teams ever assembled. Joining the Bambino were future Hall of Famer members Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, Lefty Gomez, and Connie Mack as well as stars Lefty O’Doul, Bing Miller, and Earl Whitehill. Only one player didn’t seem to belong—a journeyman catcher with a .238 career batting average named Moe Berg. Berg would eventually become an operative for the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, and many believe that this trip was his first mission as a spy.

As the motorcade paraded through Ginza rows of fans, often ten to twenty deep, crowded into the road to catch a glimpse of the Americans. The pressing crowd reduced the broad streets to narrow paths just wide enough for the limousines to pass. Confetti and streamers fluttered down from well-wishers leaning out of windows of the avenues’ multi-storied office buildings. Thousands waived Japanese and American flags and cheered wildly. Cries of “Banzai! Banzai, Babe Ruth!” echoed through the neighborhood. Reveling in the attention, the Bambino plucked flags from the crowd and stood in the back of the car waving a Japanese flag in his left hand and an American in his right. Finally, the crowd couldn’t contain itself and rushed into the street to be closer to the Babe. Downtown traffic stood still for hours as he shook hands with the multitude.

Ruth and his teammates stayed in Japan for a month, playing 18 exhibition games against Japanese opponents in 12 cities. But there was more at stake than sport. Japan and the United States were slipping towards war as the two nations vied for control over China and naval supremacy in the Pacific. Politicians on both sides of the Pacific hoped that the goodwill generated by the tour and the two nations’ shared love of the game could help heal their growing political differences. Many observers, therefore, considered the all stars’ joyous reception significant. The New York Times, for example, wrote: “The Babe’s big bulk today blotted out such unimportant things as international squabbles over oil and navies.” Connie Mack added that the tour was “one of the greatest peace measures in the history of nations.”
But the shared love for a sport would not be enough to overcome Japan’s growing nationalism. Just two miles to the northwest of the parade at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in Ichigaya, a group known as the Young Officers was planning a coup d’etat against the government, an upheaval that would jeopardize the tour’s success and put the players’ lives at risk. In another section of Tokyo, the ultra-nationalist War Gods Society met at their dojo. Their actions would tarnish the tour with bloodshed.

Banzai Babe Ruth! is the story of the doomed attempt to reconcile the United States and Japan through the tour of Major League all stars in 1934. It will reveal how two groups of men from different cultures, temporarily united by their love for baseball, became tragically divided as their countries rushed towards war. It is a tale of international intrigue, espionage, attempted murder and, of course, baseball.

We shall see how Babe Ruth, the jovial demigod of baseball, brought the two nations together and forestalled talks of war, before becoming a symbol in Japan of American decadence, cursed by imperial troops charging to their certain deaths. We shall also see how a 17-year-old pitcher named Eiji Sawamura became a national hero by playing against the Americans in friendship but died in the South Pacific as their bitter enemy. We will follow Moe Berg’s forays into espionage; the Young Officers attempt to overthrow the Japanese government; the ultra-nationalist War Gods Society attempt to murder tour organizer Matsutaro Shoriki; and the birth of Japanese professional baseball. It will introduce the lesser-known tales of Victor Starffin, the Russian immigrant and player for Japan whose father was a convicted murderer; and Jimmy Horio, a Japanese-American who played for the All Nippon team in an effort to gain a Major League contract. The 1934 All American tour of Japan was more than just a series of exhibition baseball games. It was an event that changed lives and influenced Japanese-American relations, for better and worse, for decades.

Robert K. Fitts is the author of three books and a number of articles on Japanese baseball and baseball cards. A former historical archaeologist, Rob left academics to write about baseball in 2000. His articles have appeared in The National Pastime, Baseball Research Journal, Journal of American Culture, Tuff Stuff and on MLB.com. His first book, Remembering Japanese Baseball won the 2005 Society of American Baseball Research & The Sporting News Award for Best Baseball Research. His second book, Wally Yonamine: The Man who Changed Japanese Baseball tells the story of the "Jackie Robinson of Japan." Learn more about his projects at www.RobFitts.com

69. Satchel Paige: Hitting Rock-Bottom

I was searching the internet for something or other when I came across a website dedicated to baseball in Western Canada and found an unpublished photograph of Satchel Paige. Taken in Butte, Montana in 1939 or 1940, Paige looked weary and distracted, posing with a baseball fan. I'd seen hundreds of pictures of Satchel before but this one was different. Besides the distractingly sad look on his face, it was the jersey he wore that captured my attention - it simply said "PAIGE" - that was all. I've seen Paige in the uniform of the Monarchs, Baltimore Black Sox, Birmingham Black Barons, St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, Homestead Grays, Pittsburgh Crawfords, New York Black Yankees... etc, etc... but never "PAIGE." Intrigued, I decided to do a drawing of this unique jersey and write about what the Great One was doing in 1939 and 1940...

Recognized as the best pitcher in baseball, Satchel Paige took his golden arm wherever the money and swag was good. 1938 found the great Paige in Mexico City being paid $2000 a month to hurl for Club Agrario. The fledgling Mexican League desperately wanted to bring an element of legitimacy to their league and a handful of American Negro League stars provided that while the great Satchel Paige was looked upon to provide the flash and headlines.

By the age of 33 Satchel had probably thrown more innings of ball than anyone ever had before and while much younger and stronger pitchers flamed out with arm injuries, Paige and his rubber arm never dimmed. But one afternoon warming up in the rarefied air of Mexico City, Paige threw a curveball and felt a snap in his shoulder. He retreated to his hotel room and treated the injury with a liberal dose of tequila and went to sleep. The next morning the arm was worse. The pain was incredible and quickly doubled when he tried to pitch. He managed to appear in a few games for Mexico City but with the league promoters angered and Mexican fans disappointed he finally gave up and fled across the border back into the United states.

Satch traveled around the country seeking specialists who could find out what was wrong with the greatest arm in baseball, but the only advice he got was "you'll never pitch again." Paige soon found himself running out of cash and had to start pawning his belongings in order to survive. He sank into a deep depression, realizing that he had nothing to show for all his success and absolutely no options left outside of baseball. His years of ignoring contracts and leaving teams whenever he was offered better money somewhere else had made him few friends. Only 1 man was willing to take a chance with Satchel, Kansas City Monarchs owner J.L. Wilkinson. Wilkinson put Satchel on the payroll and had him front the Monarchs second-rate traveling team. Now billed as the "Satchel Paige All-Stars" the team barnstormed all over the western part of North America, often teaming up with one of the bearded House of David teams and brought their game to the most rural of towns.

Wilkinson played up Satchels reputation for all it's worth, giving him top billing on all advertisements and guaranteeing him to pitch a few innings of each game. Paige endured the terrible pain game after game trying to alternately rest and pitch his arm back into shape. Wilkinson had the Monarchs' trainer, Frank "Jew Baby" Floyd travel with Satch and see if he could do anything to help him along. "Jew Baby" (don't even ask where his name came from, better men than I have failed to find out) rubbed Satchel down relentlessly before and after each appearance with a mysterious home-made potion, then alternated between steaming hot towel treatments and freezing cold water and ice.

Through it all Satchel Paige thrilled thousands of baseball fans who had never seen real ballplayers. The publicity surrounding Paige made him a mythical figure and the arrival of the All-Stars to a small town sometimes was the highlight of the whole year. Since the regular press didn't really write about Paige or other black players and teams, many had only heard of the great pitcher through word of mouth, pushing his already monumental reputation to biblical proportions. When the All-Stars weren't touring with the House of David they played against town teams and amateur clubs where players of all levels got the chance to try their best against the greatest pitcher in the world. Dizzy Dean or Carl Hubble would never visit the places the Paige All-Stars did and to get a chance like this was something that participants never tired of retelling throughout the years. Even in constant pain Paige gave the audience what they expected from him. His double and triple windmill wind-up, hesitation pitch and trash-talk was well worth the price of admission. That his famed fastball was now nothing more than a change-up didn't really seem to matter all that much. He relied on junk pitches and street psychology to get over on opposing batters that simply added to his mystique. However some came away disappointed by seeing Paige as a mere mortal and it was humbling for the proud Paige as well. Batters that would have hesitated to even step into the box and face him a few years earlier now hit line drives off of him and the second-rate traveling team who backed him up didn't always win.

Then on a warm Sunday in Oklahoma City, the arm came back. There are a few stories that supposedly tell the true circumstances surrounding his comeback: one relates how he was punched in the arm by a teammate resulting in the arm suddenly becoming painless, another had him making a pick-off throw to first, the ball unexpectedly rocketing to the first baseman with such velocity that the whole ballpark paused in a collective hush, and still another simply has him telling his catcher that he was feeling good that day and that was that. What all the stories have in common is that they all feature the arm suddenly, not gradually, regaining its power again. What that means and what was really wrong, we'll never know.

But one thing was for sure: Satchel Paige was back.

If you're interested in this phase of Paige's career or just want a great book about an average negro league ballplayer during the 1930's and 40's, you have to get a copy of "Catching Dreams by Frazier "Slow" Robinson. He was Satchel's catcher on the 1939 and 1940 All-Stars and his book relates what it was like playing along side Paige as his career hit rock-bottom. Robinson wasn't a star, after the Paige All-Stars broke up he bumped from team to team as a second-string backstop but his stories are top notch - not as interesting as Paige's nor as embellished as Buck O'Neil's, Robinson's book is indispensable for anyone interested in what life was really like for a typical journeyman during the golden years of the negro league baseball.

The website where I found the photograph of Paige that started this story: Baseball In Western Canada