Tuesday, August 16, 1927: Chicago

“Hey, Rooms?”

Myles Thomas

Published in

The Diary of Myles Thomas

6 min readNov 16, 2016

Benny and I get back to the hotel just before midnight, having done our share of drinking while checking out Joe E. Lewis’s comedy act at Capone’s Green Mill Lounge.

The lights in our room have been out for less than a minute when Benny whispers, “Hey, Rooms? You still awake?”

“Yeah, Rooms,” I whisper back. “What’s up?”

“If you were a baseball, who would you least want to see coming up to bat? You know, because you knew they were really going to punish you?”

Now this is exactly the sort of question that can keep a couple of drunk ballplayers up at night. The most obvious answer, of course, is Ruth. But after watching our handsome first baseman every day this season I’ve got to go with, “Gehrig. Lou just crushes the ball. In fact, if I were a baseball, I’d be doubly scared of Lou.”

Then I lay out my logic.

“First I’d be worried about how hard he was going to punish me at the plate, and then I’d be worried about how much it was going to hurt when I slammed into the outfield wall — or worse, when I spiked the corner of a goddamn seat, 350 feet away. That would be extremely painful, even to a baseball. You know what I mean?”

“I do,” says Benny.

“Goodnight, Rooms,” I say, rolling over.

“Goodnight, Rooms.”

A minute later, I hear Benny again in a whisper ask, “Hey, Rooms? You still awake?”

“Yeah, Rooms,” I whisper back. “I’m still awake.”

“You’re picking Gehrig, even after today?”

Today Ruth did the impossible — for the second time this year. He hit a ball completely out of Comiskey Park, only this time he did it during a game.

Back in July, during batting practice, Ruth hit the first ball ever out of Comiskey. As all the papers noted at the time, not only had it not been done before but both Charles Comiskey and his architect had loudly proclaimed on opening day that their renovation of the park this year — during which they’d added on a second tier of outfield stands and 24,000 more seats — had made it impossible for anyone to clear the stadium.

But Ruth did it.

Whenever the Babe takes batting practice everyone stops what they’re doing — the guys on our team, our opponents, both sets of managers and coaches, all the writers, the vendors in the stands, cops, bookies — because no one wants to miss the moment. When Ruth clubbed the ball out of Comiskey back in July, the ball travelled well over 450 feet and had the loft of a hot air balloon as it arched its way over the more than seven-stories-tall stadium. It was two hours before the game and there were only a couple of hundred people in the whole park, so the moment sounded like this:

First we heard a thunderbolt — “Crack!” — echo through the stadium.

Then everyone in unison went, “Whoa!”

Then, as the ball kept flying higher and higher, everyone went, “No!”

Then, as the ball cleared the top of the stadium, everyone at exactly the same time said, “Holy shit!”

Then you heard Ruth’s booming laughter.

Today there were 20,000 fans in the stands when the Babe put some serious hurt on a baseball. We were up 4–0 in the fifth when ChiSox pitcher Tommy Thomas put all of his 175 pounds behind a fastball that grooved its way straight to the plate; next thing Thomas knew his head was spinning as he tried to follow the flight of the ball.

This time the crack of Ruth’s bat was followed by the roar of 20,000 people leaping out of their seats and shouting a thunderous, “Whoa!”

Unlike last time, not one person said, “No!”

Just like last time everyone in unison said, “Holy shit!”

This one raced out of the park even faster than the Jidge’s batting practice home run in July, and everyone — all the players and the boys in the press box — agreed it was the furthest they’d seen a baseball fly. Ruth says it was the furthest he’s ever hit a ball. “Of course,” wrote Marshall Hunt of the Daily News, “that means it was the longest home run in the history of baseball.”

Then came the standing ovation — for a ballplayer on the road, something I’d never seen before — while Ruth did his little pigeon-toed dance around the bases.

“I don’t know, Rooms,” I say to Bennie. “There’s something magical about the way the Babe’s bat strikes a ball. If I’m a baseball, I think I’m looking forward to Ruth sending me flying to the moon. But Lou at the plate is just pure punishment.”

I close my eyes again.

“Hey, Rooms?” Benny whispers.

“What, Rooms?”

“Do you think they’re ever going to be able to execute Sacco and Vanzetti?”

The other night, just half an hour before they were going to throw the switch, everybody’s favorite anarchists got a reprieve from the Governor of Massachusetts, who granted them a stay so their defense team could file one more appeal with the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Since then anarchists’ bombs have exploded all over the world, with a couple of them tied to plots to blow up U.S. embassies in London and Geneva.

“We’re in Boston first week of September. Maybe they’ll hold out till then,” is my best guess.

I close my eyes and drift off to slee —

“Hey, Rooms?” Benny whispers.

If I ignore him, I know in less than a minute I’ll be aslee —

“Hey, Rooms?!” he whispers again, this time like a lousy Broadway actor trying to make sure the balcony can hear him.

“What, Rooms?” I say, exhausted yet surrendering to baseball roommate etiquette.

“I think you should learn the spitball from Shocker.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. I’m sure he’d teach you. And you’re already herky-jerky on the mound, and since you throw the forkball, I don’t think you’d have to change your motion. I think you could get away with it.”

Now I’m wide awake.