Babe Ruth stories never get old. I only wish a player like Ruth existed in today’s world of cell phone videos and tweeting. Imagine the RTs of people bumping into Ruth at whorehouses and bars in the middle of the night. Players getting shit for liking Instagram photos in the middle of a game would be NOTHING. Ruth would be posting Facebook status updates like “just smoked ten cigars and fucked the manager’s wife” in between double headers.
Anyway, here’s another amazing Great Bambino story that happened 99 years ago last month and it involved Ruth knocking an ump out and his reliever knocking out the lights of the opposing team.
Babe Ruth took the mound for the Red Sox against the Washington Senators and quickly got himself ejected. After walking the leadoff man, second baseman Ray Morgan, Ruth began jawing with the umpire, Brick Owens. According to the Boston Globe, Ruth thought the umpire had missed two strikes during the at-bat and told him to “Open your eyes and keep them open.” After the ump threatened to eject Ruth if he didn’t be quiet and get back to pitching, Ruth yelled, “You run me out and I will come in and bust you on the nose.”
Sure enough, the ump tosses Ruth and the Babe knocks him the fuck out. The cops had to pull Ruth off the field and IMAGINE THE TMZ FOOTAGE! Anyway, the game continues on and here’s where shit gets almost as nutty.
Once Ruth had been lifted, Ernie Shore came on in relief. No slouch himself, the 6’4″ Shore (at that time, only 30 Major League pitchers had ever been that tall or taller in Major League history) entered the game with a 1.97 ERA in 12 starts (compared to Ruth’s 2.35 in 16). After Morgan was caught stealing at second base, the hurler retired the next 26 batters, despite striking out only two.
Shore basically tossed a perfect game (minus the unfortunate occurrence in the first inning) and it counted as such until it eventually just got logged a combined no hitter. The only hit that day was Ruth’s meathooks to an ump’s mush.
[via MLB.com]