A Mighty Blast into History

It looks like most any old baseball. The surface dirty. The horsehide scuffed here and there. The seams slightly worn and faded.

But it is no ordinary ball, for its travels are the stuff of legend.

Like all National League baseballs of its day, this ball began its journey at the Spalding factory in Chicopee, Massachusetts. There, factory workers made the ball much as they had been making them for decades, to exacting specifications and stitched by hand.

Next stop: Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, Saturday, May 25, 1935. Removed from its box and rubbed with mud to remove the sheen, the ball was ready to use in that day’s game between the visiting Boston Braves and the hometown Pittsburgh Pirates.

With one out in the top of the seventh and the home club on top, 7-5, the ball made its way into the hands of Pirates pitcher Guy Bush. A moundsman with loads of speed and a nifty curveball, Bush had won over 150 games in a dozen seasons with the Cubs before being traded to Pittsburgh the previous November. Now Bush faced a formidable opponent: Babe Ruth.

Like Bush, Ruth dressed in the uniform of a new club that season, the Braves having signed the former Yankees slugger just three months earlier. Now in the twilight of his career, the Bambino was making what amounted to a farewell tour around National League ballparks, where eager fans hoped to catch a glimpse of the Babe’s past glory.

This day, Ruth showcased his old power. He had already connected for two homers, the initial blast coming in the first inning off Pirates starter Red Lucas, while Babe’s second homer came off reliever Bush in the third inning. In an interview from 1974, the 62-year-old Bush recalled both homers he surrendered that day:

“The first one he hit off me was a ball hit off the handle. He pulled it about eight or ten feet fair and it just fell into the stands. Just a short fly ball was all it was. Well, it made me so mad I said, ‘The next time I face him I’m going to blow three straight fast-balls right by him.’ And that's what I started out to do. I got the first one by him all right. But the second one ... well, he got ahold of that ball and hit it clear over the triple deck, clear out of the ballpark in right-center. I’m telling you it was the longest cockeyed ball I ever saw hit in my life.”