#Shortstops: Waite Hoyt Remembers The Babe

To begin with, let me tell you this about Babe Ruth. He was not fat. And he did not have skinny legs. He had rather tapered ankles, that’s true. But . . . the calves of his legs were very good sized, and he was not fat. He had a big chest and he had a very small fanny and he was not big around the waist.

He was not a drunk, by no chance. He drank, and I guess at times he was drunk, but he was never, never was he, did he miss a game because of that or have a bad day because of it, never. Never. Never. Any of these lame-brains that write and talk on the air about fat, drunk Babe Ruth, that’s silly and ridiculous.

Apologizing in advance for being “so frank,” he confesses that “we used to compare him to an Airedale or a dog or a sheep hound or something.” He’d go out “carousing” all night, “visiting his girlfriends,” then come home to a “very respectable family, and the family would pat the dog on his head and say, ‘What a nice dog Rover is.’ Ruth was like that.”

Hoyt tells of a time the Yankees played in Detroit on Harry Heilmann Day, when Heilmann was presented with a number of gifts, including a Great Dane (“jeez, a beautiful animal”), but Heilmann didn’t know what to do with it. “So he sent the clubhouse boy over, and the clubhouse boy said [to Ruth], ‘Mr. Heilmann wants to know if you’d like to have that dog.’ And Babe says, ‘What kind of dog is it?’ The kid says, ‘A Great Dane.’ And Ruth says, ‘Well, if it’s a great dame, I’ll take it!’”

Hoyt doesn't gloss over Ruth's faults. He admits that Ruth “did not know the social graces.” He recalls a time when Hoyt was pitching and a fly ball was hit to Ruth in right field. Hoyt says it looked like Ruth “short-legged it, meaning he didn’t take long strides, and pulled up short, and the ball fell for a base hit.” Hoyt stood on the mound, shaking his head, hands on his hips, glaring at Ruth. After the inning, Ruth stormed into the dugout: “Don’t you ever show me up again.”

Hoyt was pulled from the game and had just finished showering when the game ended. “I was sitting on my bench in front of my locker without any clothes on” and Ruth comes up to him and calls him names and says, “I’ll punch you in the nose.” Hoyt snapped back, “’Well, you’re not tied.’ So he took a kick at me, with his spikes on, and he’s in full uniform.” Hoyt jumped up and they exchanged blows, teammates trying to pull them apart, with tiny Miller Huggins, all 5-foot-6 and 140 pounds, climbing between the two men to break it up (and not without suffering a few blows himself). Then, with a voice more quiet, sounding humbled, maybe embarrassed, Hoyt says “But Ruth, after that, he and I didn’t speak for a couple of years.”

“Ruth was a very good guy,” Hoyt says, as if lost in memory. He remembers a time when the Yankees had a meeting on potential World Series shares. Some didn’t want to give a player who had been on the team only a couple of months a full share if they won. Ruth stood up and said if the guy didn’t get a full share, he would sit out the Series. There was no further discussion.

He mentions Ruth’s warmth with fans, his philanthropic work, his love of children, his generosity with teammates (filling his bathtub with ice and beer and hosting after-game parties in a red robe with a velvet collar and in red Moroccan slippers), repeating that Ruth “was a good guy.”

Hoyt becomes serious and somber for a moment, describing his own religious beliefs – his belief in “a power greater than ourselves, God, or destiny, or whatever you care to call it. . . . If there is a Judgement Day,” Hoyt says, “I believe that Ruth will receive more pluses than minuses.” He concludes with a story to illustrate, he says, “how Ruth was, at the bottom of his heart.”

It was in the winter of 1947-1948, a cold day, when “Mrs. Hoyt” and Waite Hoyt went to visit Ruth in his hotel suite, where Ruth was dying from cancer. Ruth, he says, was on the sofa, “slumped low with his head almost below his knees. He had a glass of beer on the table,” one of the only things he could keep down. They visited, talking mostly with Ruth’s wife, Claire, because Babe was so sick “he could hardly talk.” After an hour or so, the Hoyts said they needed to get going. As they rose, Ruth stirred. He struggled to lift himself out of the sofa. Hoyt describes the rest:

So he said, “Hey, wait a minute, doll” to Mrs. Hoyt. He said, “Hey, wait a minute,” he said. ‘I’ve never known you,” he said. “I’ve never given you anything either,’ he said. So, he went into the kitchen . . . . and he opened the refrigerator door and there were two orchids in there. And he came out with the orchids and he gave them to Mrs. Hoyt and he said, “Here,” he said. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Don’t forget the old Babe, will ya?”