 Hello there. This is Jimmy Powers coming your way with another story from The Tumult and the Shouting. Hi there. This is Jimmy Powers transcribed with another highlight from the colorful life of the late and great Granny Rice's best-selling autobiography, The Tumult and the Shouting. Today, Granny tells us of his own viewpoint of the controversial home run that Babe Ruth smashed in the 1932 World Series. So, with a salute to the every young spirit of Granny, I turn the page and, in first person, take up his narrative. An argument developed in 1932 and it's been popping up intermittently ever since. It came to life again recently, just as it will for many years to come. Because it involved Babe Ruth and a World Series episode, it will probably never subside. The argument developed over the question of Babe Ruth's calling his home run against Charlie Root in the third game of the Yankee Chicago World Series. That was the year that the Yankees swept the Cubs in four straight. I figure I have a fair right to vote on this incident. I was there and saw what happened on the field. I also got first-hand information from Babe and Lou Gehrig while we played bridge on the return trip home. In the first inning with Coombs and Joe Sewell on base, Babe sailed his first home run into the bleachers. He hit Root's earnest pitching with that same easy playful swing that he had been using a few minutes before against the soft, casual service of guinea pig throwers. The ball would have fallen into the street beyond the bleachers under ordinary conditions, but dropped among the patrons in the temporary seats. As Babe trotted those bases past the Cubs dugout, he let loose some of his copyrighted remarks that never land in the family newspaper, then blew them a salute known as the Bronx Cheer. Just remember that Babe was 38 years old when the 1932 series came round. As an outfielder, he was pretty close to being past tense. All season he had been breaking this news to himself as well as the fans. Billy Jurges, the Cubs manager, hit a short fly to Babe out there in left field. He mauled it about trying for a shoestring catch, and Jurges chugged into second base. Well, that's when my old pal Babe Ruth looked like a fat man after finishing a three-legged race at an Elks picnic. It was old Babe then. In the press box, we watched as out on the field, Babe Ruth turned to Earl Coombs in center and gestured wildly, Hey, he was saying, my dogs ain't what they used to be. Don't hit him out to me. Hit him at that youngster over there. Of course, the crowd tore down the place hooting at Babe and bellering at him in contempt. Somebody in the crowd tossed a lemon which hit him on the leg. Some players, more artistically inclined, would have gone after the culprit. Some in their dignity would have ignored it. But the Babe topped the jest. With graphic gestures, old man Ruth simply called on these bleachers for fair play. If they had to toss dead fruit at him, well, please don't pitch it as tired old pins. Would they please hit him on the head instead? Well along comes this big fifth inning. The score was four to four. Joey Sewell first up was thrown out short to first. Up came Babe, swinging a full set of lumber, then tossing away the other two bats. Guy Bush, a fine cub's pitcher, was on the top step of the dugout, giving a vibrant imitation of a hog collar. Ruth laughed and gestured at Bush as if to say, wait, mug, I'm going to park one out of the lot. Ruth threw a strike past Babe and he held up his index finger to Bush. It was like waving a scarlet rug at a bull. Bush went wild. Another call strike and Bush was raving and blathering like a wild man as he heaped invective on Babe. Babe held up two fingers this time. Ruth wasted two balls and the Babe put up two fingers on his other hand. Then, with a warning gesture of his hand to Bush, he sent him the signal for all of Wrigley Field to see. Now he said, this is the big one, look. And that pitch went riding in the longest home run ever hit in the park. The rest is simply recorded history. The Anxiv course swept the series in four straight. Whether he meant to call a home run or not, he certainly thought he had called it just as it happened. He told the story of the player who had said to him, suppose you had struck out instead of hitting a home run. I never thought of that. The Babe said, I was only thinking about a home run. A fairly short distance from Chicago, the train came to a stop in a small city. But there were at least 5,000 people present demanding a look at the Babe. Gary and I slipped out and stood with the mob as the Babe appeared. This was a historic sight. The roar that went up when he appeared was louder than any I've ever heard. Raising his right hand aloft, he made his address. The crowd didn't want to hear any speech. It wanted to cheer. But between loud roars and applause, it listened. I remember that in his speech, the Babe denounced the Cubs and said he had called and hit the home run to avenge Mark Koenig. The Cubs, he said, were a bunch of bums. So he had bowled them over. And that was one speech I'll never forget. Now this is Jimmy Powers once again. And here today is baseball's commissioner, Ford Frick, who learned his baseball as a player at DePaul University, a very fine university in Indiana. He wrote his baseball as a writer on various papers, including 12 years with the old New York Journal American. Today, with a human understanding hand, Ford Christopher Frick rules baseball as its commissioner. Ford, it's nice having you here to pull out a few of your own memories about Granny Rice, the Babe, and particularly that shot that Babe landed in Wrigley Field, Center Field Stands. Jimmy on the subject of Granny Rice, Babe Ruth, I feel I'm sort of prepared to speak, and certainly I'm interested. I don't know of any two fellows who, through the 20s and the 30s, contributed more to the pleasure of the people who were more genuinely representative of sports as we knew it or who had bigger hearts than those two chaps. Where did you meet Granny for the first time, commissioner? That's a very interesting story, Jim. When I first came to New York, I was up in the Yankee offices, then we were over on West 42nd Street along the Siegfield Theater, and I hadn't been in the office more than 10 minutes, and Granny Rice came in. Well, of course, I recognized him and knew him and was properly overcome and feeling very humble, and I never had anyone treat me better than Granny. He came over and introduced himself as if he was someone that nobody had ever heard of, made me feel that I really belonged to New York, took me out, bought me a sandwich and a cup of coffee, and told me more about riding sports in 15 minutes than any man I ever knew. He wrote about 67 million words. Now, we know what a deadline is, but we never had to meet anything like that. We did you. No, and the wonderful thing about it, Jimmy, is that in all those years and all those words, Granny had one great idea, and that was to build up rather than tear down the man who performed sports, and I think for very good reason. I think he always felt that those fellows were heroes to children, and that he didn't want to be the man who uncovered their feet of clay. And of course, he's verse, well, I've always been partial to verse and poetry. I have a feeling that Granny is going to rate us near the top of our modern American sports points. He was big in so many ways, just as the Babe was big. Commissioner, you heard Granny's testimony concerning that World Series home run that Babe Ruth called, or a lot of people thought he called, in the 32 series against the Cubs. Now, what was your impression or version of that? Well, that's one of the things that Granny and I have always argued about, Jimmy. I was out there at that World Series, as you were, of course, and at that time I was very close to Babe. I was writing his copy for him, traveling with him, with the Yankees, and I have never been convinced in my mind that the Babe did call that shot. Now, I'll tell you why. I know afterward it looked like it. He made a gesture. He held up one finger when there was one, and then he held up two fingers and sort of put his arm like that, but up the day he died, I tried two or three times to pin Babe down, and he said, well, you know what you read in the newspaper, but he never once told me that he called the shot, and I don't think it was important. Certainly it was the grand gesture, whether he did or not, and certainly there was no home run that was more dramatic or that lifted the crowd to its feet so much as that one, whether or not he called it his immaterial. Did you ever play golf with Granny Rice for it? I know you were a pretty good golfer. Oh yes, I played golf with Granny. Many times, as a matter of fact, Granny, at the time of his death, had an old putter in mind that he'd swiped out of my bag. I could never use it, but we were playing one time down in Florida. I had this putter, an old Burke putter, by the way, a funny little triangular blade on it, and Granny didn't have a putter and he borrowed it, and he was sinking putts all over the green, and he said, well, you're a terrible golfer anyhow, and that putter doesn't do you any good. Thank you very much, and put it in his bag, as far as I know, he still had it when he died. What impression do you think Granny will leave on the sport, the writers, and most of all, the fans? Well, I think that's entirely obvious right now, even though Granny's been gone only a short time, he has already become a tradition, and I think the reason was that the man was so... Well, first of all, he had a great flair for writing, but he was so inherently fair and so inherently decent, and so much inclined to give a break to the fellow who was having trouble. Well, I think that's a fair and a pretty intimate picture of Grantlyn Rice, and folks, that's it for today. Commissioner Ford Frick, it's been great fun reminiscing with you about Granny Rice and Babe Ruth, too irreplaceable, certainly, and thanks a lot for dropping in. Now, this is Jimmy Power's transcribe saying, so long until next time.