Tuesday Night, July 19, 1927: On the Train to St. Paul
Cabbage And Ribs
Monday’s game is another scorcher; or as Schoolboy succinctly puts it, “It’s like we’re playing on the fucking sun.”
The score is tied 1–1 going into the seventh when Five O’clock Lightning strikes early — just after Lazzeri, who’s still on Eastern Standard Time, sounds the alarm:
In the dugout before the top of the inning, Lazzeri marches up and down the pavement, like the next great Italian dictator, staring each and every one of us in the face while taking up our rallying cry: “Five O’Clock Lightning! Itzz-a Five O’Clock Lightning! Itzz-a time! Itzz-a time, right-a now! Right-a here in St. Lou-eee!”
George Pipgras — who’s nosing ahead of me in our Last-Man-In-The-Rotation Derby — starts the rally with a single. By the time it’s over, we’ve scored six runs to lead 7–1.
Next inning, Gehrig hits a three-run shot, his 31st of the season, to put him one ahead of Ruth.
Lou trots around the bases with a wet cabbage leaf dripping under his hat — but then, thanks to a girl the Babe knows intimately, all of us have taken to wearing cabbage leaves under our caps in this heat.
People are always giving the Babe crazy ideas, which he always repeats to us, as if each one is the secret of life. One of my favorites is how all the teams should have women broadcast their games on the radio, because men will listen to anyone, and a woman’s voice would attract more female listeners. The Babe loved that idea, but everyone else laughed at it.
Anyway, last year during a summer sweat, one of the girls at the House of the Good Shepherd suggested to the Babe that he put a large cabbage leaf inside our ice water tank on the bench and then, every inning just before heading to the outfield, put it under his cap. She said her daddy, a dirt farmer in Georgia, did it to keep cool when working the fields in the summer. The Babe tried it and swore by it.
As a joke, Lazzeri tried it. He swore by it, too. Of course, with Lazzeri you never know if he’s pulling your leg or not, but next game Earle Combs tried it, and before you knew it everyone on the team was a “cabbage head,” even the guys on the bench.
Our uniforms — we have three sets of home and away that are made to last the whole season — along with our socks and caps, are all made of thick wool, so there are some games in the heat of summer when our cabbage leaves are the only soft, cool things we feel for hours. Everyone on the team now wears them, including the coaches. Except, of course, Huggins.
“If we win the World Series,” Little Julie Wera says to Ruth on the bench just before the game in Sportsman’s Park, a cool piece of iced cabbage under his cap, “we should consider giving that whore a half share.”
“Hey, Little Julie, don’t call her a whore, she’s a good keed,” says the Babe, sweetly taking up the cabbage maiden’s honor.
“I’m sure she’s a swell kid, Babe. And we’re all lucky you know her — and we’re lucky she’s so fond of you that she was willing to pass along her dear dad’s farming secrets.”
“Her dad was a violent bastard. That’s how she ended up where she’s at,” says the Babe without looking at Little Julie, while he watches the St. Louis pitcher, Ernie Wingard, warm up. “But she’s a good keed.”
“Like I said,” Little Julie replies apologetically, hoping now that the Babe’s not angry at him, “I’m sure she’s a swell kid. Honest.”
The House of the Good Shepherd is the best whorehouse in any major league town — certainly the Babe thinks so, since he basically lives there whenever we come to St. Louis.
This trip, Ruth didn’t even bother to check into our hotel, the Buckingham. Instead, he went straight from the train station to the Shepherd.
St. Louis is the one town where Huggins and Barrow will let the Babe off his leash and won’t even pretend to have a curfew for him. The first time I heard that I thought it was bunk, until Schoolboy sagely explained how unnecessary a curfew was: “First of all, unlike when we’re in every other town, in St. Louis the House of the Good Shepherd is the only place the Big Bam ever goes. Second of all, none of the coaches feels like doing a curfew check at the Good Shepherd. That could get ugly.”
Not that the coaches are strangers to the establishment. No one on the team is a stranger to the Shepherd, except for Huggins, Gehrig and Combs. I mean, it’s not like we’re bumping into each other like we’re at Grand Central Station and everyone’s trying to get on the same train. But we’re all familiar with the joint. And at least one night a season, the Babe will hold a team party at the Good Shepherd, which has a restaurant downstairs with the best ribs I’ve ever eaten, and a terrific steak, too.
The ribs at the Good Shepherd are so good that every time we leave St. Louis, the Babe loads up the train with racks — of ribs, not broads — and turns the ladies’ room into a makeshift kitchen. He slathers the ribs with sauce, then slow cooks them. He also gets a couple of kegs of the Good Shepherd’s homebrew smuggled onto the train. The whole time he has his Victrola blaring, usually Paul Whiteman’s band or comedy records, his favorites being Moran and Mack’s black-faced “Two Black Crows.”
The Babe charges everyone 50 cents — players, coaches and the writers — for as much as we can consume. He stays behind his little barbecue pit until the last of the ribs are gone. Then he’ll serenade us with his saxophone, or he and Benny Bengough will act out the Moran and Mack routines, while the players take turns tossing rib bones and beer bottles out the windows, trying to hit telegraph poles.
What is it about House of the Good Shepherd for Ruth?
There are other first-class brothels in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia — hell, in every big city if you have the money to spend, you can find yourself a girl or two for the evening. Having been there a couple of times now with Jidge and Schoolboy, I see that for the Babe — aside from satisfying his primitive, carnal interests — there’s something about the Good Shepherd that makes him feel at home.
Feeling at home in a brothel sounds strange. And sad. But for Ruth, I don’t think it is. For Ruth, being a regular at the House of the Good Shepherd is no different than being a regular at a restaurant. There’s something about going into any establishment and having people who know you, who treat you not just as a passing-by customer, but as a “regular.” Being a regular takes the edge off your loneliness — you don’t get to be a regular staying at home. No matter whether it’s a restaurant or a bar, or an establishment like the Good Shepherd, being considered a regular provides a certain comfort — even if that comfort is a young girl for hire. That much I can tell you, firsthand.
Ballplayers are more like circus performers than touring vaudevillians. Our game — and the way we connect with our audience — is based on the physical. It’s not about words, or reflection. At least not until the newsboys reinvent it. It’s about action and blood flow. And that’s how most of us connect when we’re not performing, most of the time. Especially on the road, at night we’re looking for a different type of physical release than we get from the game, and a different kind of physical connection, too.
And we don’t mind paying for it.
We’re professionals too.
