The Babe In Court

Saturday, September 17, 1927: New York

Myles Thomas

Published in

The Diary of Myles Thomas

13 min readNov 16, 2016

Babe Ruth punched a cripple, and now he’s in front of a magistrate in a midtown courtroom.

At least, that’s what the cripple, Bernard Neimeyer, claims.

So now on a warm September morning — in a courtroom on West 54th Street, packed with over 200 reporters, police, and baseball fans — Neimeyer is swearing on a Bible that his version of events is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

“It’s not quite the Snyder-Gray trial,” says Schoolboy, surveying the courtroom, “but it’ll do for a morning’s worth of entertainment.”

Under extremely friendly questioning by the Manhattan assistant district attorney who decided to bring this case into court, Neimeyer describes how he was assaulted on Broadway and 74th Street by Ruth around eleven o’clock on the night of July 4th. (Speaking of assaulted, that was the night after we pummeled the Senators in both games of our Fourth of July doubleheader in the Bronx, 12–1 and 21–1.)

**Broadway and 72nd Street, looking south, 1927.**

“I was walking slowly up Broadway from 72nd street. I walk slowly because of my fractured spine. I fought in the Spanish-American War. I fought for this country. The Battle of El Caney. That’s right. July 1, 1898. That’s almost 29 years to the day that I was assaulted by that man over there!”

And with that Neimeyer stands up and points at the Babe.

He then begins to give an overview of the Spanish-American War, and the events of July 1898. Eventually, Magistrate Stern interrupts him and requests that he confine himself to the events of July 1927.

“I was minding my own business, when two women walked up to me, and one of them said, ‘That’s the man!’

“And that’s when he…” Neimeyer shouts, again standing up and pointing his finger at the Babe. “That’s when that man punched me!”

Neimeyer tells the court that Ruth hit him because the Babe was under the impression Neimeyer said something rude to his wife.

“Sacré bleu!” Schoolboy whispers to me. “Monsieur Neimeyer has made zee serious blund-dair!”

“No offense, Schoolboy, but that’s a god-awful French accent.”

“I ham not zee School-boy. I ham zee great French dee-tect-teeve, Hercule Poirot. And I ham smelling zee rat.”

“Schoolboy, have you even read Agatha Christie?”

“Oui.”

“Then you know that Poirot is Belgian, not French.”

“Merde!” says Schoolboy.

“Nonetheless,” he continues, “I ham keeping zee accent!”

Suddenly, Neimeyer is screaming.

“I WAS MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS! But he hit me! And he was getting ready to strike me again! I was begging him to stop! ‘Please! I’m already blind in one eye! Please!’

“But this brute only stopped because of the kindness of his wife — the same lady he thought I’d slandered! — she grabbed him and cried out, ‘Please, George, don’t! It wasn’t him!’”

**Babe and Helen Ruth, with their daughter, Dorothy.**

By this point it’s pretty clear to everyone in the courtroom, with the possible exception of Bernard Neimeyer and the assistant district attorney who allowed this charge to be brought before the court — probably just so he could read his name in the paper — that Mr. Bernard Neimeyer is nuts. Completely out of his skull.

“Mr. Neimeyer,” asks the magistrate, “had you ever seen George Ruth before?”

“No, sir,” he replies. “I’d never seen George Ruth before. But I’ll never forget the face, physique and dog-trot walk of the cad who hit me. I’ll not forget that if I live to be a hundred. Nor shall I forget the kindness of his wife.”

Schoolboy leans over to me and whispers, again in the voice of Agatha Christie’s famed detective, “What zee crip-pole does not know, mon ami, is zat Monsieur Le Ruth never, ever, ever takes hiz wife out after dark.”

“Jesus. Are you planning to testify with that cheap accent?” I ask him.

“Oui,” says Schoolboy.

While Bernard Neimeyer hasn’t brought a single eyewitnesses to this Hell’s Kitchen courtroom, the Babe has brought an assortment of folks, including Schoolboy, to testify on his behalf that on the night in question, Ruth was nowhere near Mr. Neimeyer. That’s because they were all with him that night in Garfield, New Jersey, at Jimmy Donoghue’s.

Jimmy Donoghue’s is a speakeasy — for the purposes of the court, however, Ruth’s lawyer has instructed everyone to refer to it as a restaurant — located across the Hudson River. As speakeasies go, it’s a low key joint, nothing like Texas Guinan’s, and that’s why the Babe loves it. Donoghue’s has a private dining room where Ruth goes once a week when he’s in town to play cards, drink beer and shoot the shit with his pals.

When he’s in New York, Jidge confines himself to private rooms, like Donoghue’s, and house parties — in the homes and apartments of a select group of mostly show business friends — always with his girlfriend of the past two years, Claire. She’s the real woman behind the man, and the reason why he’s settled down, at least when he’s home in New York.

On those nights when the Babe heads out to New Jersey, Jumpin’ Joe Dugan and Silent Bob Meusel always accompany him, with Sailor Bob and Schoolboy joining a couple of times a season. To both Schoolboy’s and Hercule Poirot’s disappointment, none of the players are asked to testify today, as the Babe has also brought along two non-pinstripe witnesses.

Shortly after Neimeyer finishes his screed, the Babe stands up from his counsel’s table and calmly says, “Your honor, I deny the charges.”

He pauses, and then softly, and very sadly, he adds, “I’m not mad at this fellow, your honor. I just feel sorry for him.”

The Babe has a deep compassion for the weakest among us — kids, the physically infirmed, even the mentally damaged, like Neimeyer. I mean, here he is, dragged into court by a lunatic (and an idiot assistant DA), and rather than be angry, he’s full of genuine pity for the guy.

It’s quite a contrast to the way he felt the week before in Boston, when the Babe found himself being brutally heckled by a Beantown drunk who regularly gets under his nerves.

It’s the Tuesday right after Labor Day and we’re in Fenway for the last five games of our month-long road trip. There’s a good-sized crowd in the stands, and the Red Sox rooters are in prime form, especially Conway.

Conway is a loudmouth drunk who comes to all of our games, and has been a thorn in the Babe’s side since right after the Babe was sold by the Red Sox to the Yankees back in 1919. Conway’s voice is as loud as a tugboat’s horn and it’s frequently amplified by a megaphone he brings to the games. Sometimes he gets so lewd and vicious the Sox will take away his megaphone, but mostly Conway barks unleashed.

In his previous two games, Ruth had gone 1 for 10. So today Conway is all over Ruth, hollering, “You can’t hit in this park anymore, you big ugly Gorilla!”

Ruth gets called a lot of stuff, but he really hates being called a gorilla. Hates it. He thinks it’s just another way for someone to call him a n*gg*r. And Ruth hates being called a n*gg*er.

So when Ruth comes up to the plate in the first inning and flies out to center, and then hears Conway hollering, “Nice try, you big gorilla!” he looks hard in Conway’s direction before he trots back out to left field.

In the third, after Ruth strikes out, Conway really starts giving the Babe the needle. “Nice swing, you old gorilla! Sit your fat old ass down and watch your boyfriend give it a try.”

The Babe’s boyfriend, Gehrig, follows up with a double that drives in a run. Ruth sits on the bench steaming.

“I really fucking hate that fucking guy,” Ruth says to no one in particular.

Two innings later, Ruth hits a ball deep into the hole between first and second. Bill Regan, Boston’s second baseman, makes a spectacular diving play on the ball — one that he’ll probably be telling his great grandchildren about, every time he sees them till he dies — and makes a great throw to first. It’s a bang-bang play, and Ruth, running on pure anger, almost beats the throw. But doesn’t.

“You’re slowing down, you big old Gorilla!” yells Conway.

The next inning, the sixth, Ruth walks to the plate with Combs and Koenig on first and third. Out on the field, the Red Sox call time and have a meeting on the mound to discuss how, or even if, they should pitch to the Babe.

“What are you bums doing out there?!” yells Conway. “Just pitch to the big gorilla!”

After the Sox finish their conference, just before Tony Welzer starts his windup, the Babe asks for time. First he stares up toward Conway, then he points towards the outfield stands.

“Get back in the box, you big ape!” yells Conway.

Ruth steps back into the batter’s box and digs his spikes deep into the dirt.

He takes the first pitch for a ball.

Between pitches the Babe steps out, and again he stares up towards Conway. Again he points towards the outfield stands.

This time, as he steps back into the box, a banana comes flying out of the stands and lands between Ruth and first base. The umpire calls time, and one of the Red Sox ball boys runs out to clear the field.

“Aren’t you hungry, you big ape?” yells Conway, to the cruel laughter of the Boston crowd.

Ruth steps back in, and waits for Welzer’s next pitch.

What follows is a titanic blast over the center field wall that the next day’s Boston Herald will call “epic” and “the longest ever made at Fenway.”

“Ruth’s greatest home runs in point of distance are those he made in Tampa, in Detroit, and in Chicago. At Tampa against the Giants in the spring of 1919 he slammed a ball 500 feet from the plate. Only this summer he whacked a homer over the double-decked right field stand at Comiskey Park, for what Windy City experts said was easily the most prodigious homer they had ever seen.
“But the Babe’s homer yesterday probably was a more meritorious performance than any of his other gems. It cleared a wall that rises at least 35 feet and must have landed 500 feet from home. In the second place the wind was cutting across the path of this parabola.”

After circling the bases, the Babe stands upon the plate, points at Conway in the stands, and takes a deep, dramatic bow.

Then Ruth tells the Fenway police to throw the bum out. As stunned as the rest of the stadium by the majesty of his act, they immediately comply with his request.

One inning later, with the stands as quiet as a sunrise in the desert, Ruth parks a 3–0 pitch into the right field stands.

“Goddamnit,” says the Babe as he comes back into the dugout after his second home run.

“What’s wrong, Babe?” asks Little Eddie Bennett.

“I wish that bastard Conway had been around to see that one, too.”

On the train back from Boston, Gallico, Ford Frick, Schoolboy, Joe Dugan and I are in the smoker talking about Conway and his ilk, and their effect on players.

Inevitably, our conversation turns to Philadelphia.

In most ballparks they root against the opposition, but not in Philly. In Philadelphia they come to heckle their own.

“It’s not baseball, it’s bear baiting,” says Ford Frick.

“Fuck the Philly fans,” is all Dugan says.

And he should know. After all, he got his nickname, Jumpin’ Joe, back when he was on the Athletics and the favorite target of their fans. At times their abuse got to be too much for him to take, so he would jump the team and just go missing for days.

This year, the Philly fans have a brand new target: Bill Lamar.

“Well, Joe,” says Gallico, “your former pals in the stands seem to have made quite a piñata out of Lamar.”

Good Time Bill Lamar is the A’s terrific left fielder. At least, he was a terrific player for 10 years, until the 1927 Philly fans put him in their sights.

Frick, our press box mathematician looks up from his notebook and says, “Until Connie Mack pulled him from the lineup, Good Time was batting .312 on the road, when he was out of shouting distance from the Philadelphia fans. But, get this, when he’s in Philly, the mob’s gotten on him so bad that he’s only hitting .272, in just 28 games.”

“Mack only played him in 28 home games?” says a surprised Gallico.

“Fuck the Philly fans,” says Jumpin’ Joe.

“Lamar’s a .310 lifetime hitter,” says Frick. “So that means this season the fans have knocked almost 40 points off his batting average. Remarkable.”

Gallico blows one of his perfect smoke rings and says, “I don’t think I’ve seen Lamar’s name in the lineup since the beginning of August.”

“That’s cause he jumped the team,” says Frick.

“Really?” asks Schoolboy.

“Yeah,” says Frick. “I was on the horn to Philly last night with Jimmy Isaminger of the North American — he gave me Lamar’s stats — and he says Lamar simply couldn’t take it anymore, so he asked Connie Mack for his release, and Old Man Mack gave it to him.”

“Fuck the Philly fans,” says Jumpin’ Joe.

Upon our return to New York, we find out just how insane things have become in Philadelphia between the team and the fans.

This past Thursday, Connie Mack was in a courtroom in Philadelphia trying to put an A’s fan named Harry Donnelly behind bars. According to a Philadelphia newspaper that Urban Shocker showed me, Mack had the Shibe Park cops arrest Donnelly, and then he hauled him into court and told the local magistrate:

“This man’s rooting has damaged the morale of my team. He has been razzing us all year with a voice that carries like a three-mile loudspeaker.
Because of him I have had to dispose of Bill Lamar, a competent outfielder. And he has assailed other players until they are of little use to the club at home.
“This man has done more to ruin the morale of the Athletics than any other factor, including the bats of Ruth and Gehrig.”

According to the paper, Donnelly was held on $500 bail and the court threatened to fine him if he was ever found again to be, quote, “handing out raspberries.”

To quote Jumpin’ Joe Dugan:

“Fuck the Philly fans.”

Friday, the Babe was back in the Midtown Courthouse.

Once again, Bernard Neimeyer carried on, while Ruth sat silently at his counsel’s table.

Finally, the magistrate thanked both men, and then quickly ruled that George Herman Ruth was an innocent man.

The couple of hundred folks who showed up to watch the courtroom circus all shouted as if the Yankees had won another World Series. Even the boys in the press. Everyone except for poor Mr. Neimeyer and the assistant DA.