December 18, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Babe Ruth was the Greatest baseball player of all time, yet time proved to be his greatest enemy. Join us as Mike Gibbons tells the story of Babe Ruth's final years as a professional baseball player.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. Babe Ruth was
the greatest baseball player of all time, yet time has
also proven to be his greatest enemy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Barna McNish presents.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The story of Babe Ruth's hectic final years as a
baseball professional, as told by Mike Gibbons, who's the executive
director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Our story begins in the nineteen thirty two World Series
between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
The Babe came up in Game three and in the
fifth inning, pointed to where he was going to hit
the next pitch and hit it for the longest home
run in Wrigley Field history. It was became known as
the called Shot of one of the most dramatic World
Series moments of all time. Now what happened, though, was
this series, which was won by the Yankees, was shortened.
(01:05):
Not all the games were played, including the last two
which were scheduled for Yankee Stadium, and the Yankees had
to refund one hundred thousand dollars to ticket holders for
the games that were not played. This was during the
Great Depression, The Yankees, although they were making money, did
not have a lot of extra income from the World
Series that year and went into nineteen thirty three having
(01:27):
to cut salaries, including a bunch of money from Babe
Ruth's contract. So Babe takes a cut. He's not happy
about that, but goes off and performs pretty well that season.
He beat Lou Garrig in the home run count that year,
but was a distant second to slugger Jimmy Fox from
(01:48):
the Philadelphia Athletics. In his last game of nineteen thirty three,
Babe Ruth was asked to pitch at Yankee Stadium by
the Yankees, and he said, okay, I'll going to do that.
He had only pitched once in the previous twelve years,
but anyway, he got himself in shape to pitch and
went out and pitched a complete game, six to five
(02:09):
victory over the Boston Red Sox. So Babe still had
it in him. So we come to the end of
nineteen thirty three. Ruth knows he's getting old, and you know,
he says, I really think that I want to stick
around with the Yankees because I'd like to manage. So
he went to Yankees' ownership and asked them if there
(02:33):
was a chance that he could ever manage the New
York Ball Club, and Colonel Rupert, the owner of the Yankees,
said no, I'm going to stick with McCarthy, our current manager,
and to wit he gave McCarthy a three year extension
through nineteen thirty five. Babe Ruth never had a chance
with the Yankees. He was approached about that time to
(02:56):
manage the Boston Red Sox, but Ruth said no. He
still fell that he had too much cachet as a
player with the Yankees and he turned that down. The
White Sox were interested as well, again Ruth showed no interest.
He wanted to play and manage in New York, and
after the nineteen thirty three season, he found out that
(03:16):
the Detroit Tigers really wanted him. The Tiger owner was Navian,
and Frank spoke with the Yankee ownership and asked them
if they could work out some kind of a deal
that would get Ruth to come over to Detroit as
a player manager in exchange for a ballplayer or two.
(03:37):
And they did work out a deal and Navan asked
Ruth to come to Detroit and meet with him, but
the Babe had scheduled a trip to Honolulu with his
family and said I'll talk to you when I get
back from Hawaii. In the meantime, Navan was not real
happy with that response and signed a guy by the
(03:58):
name of Mickey Cochran who had played for Connie Mack
in Philadelphia, and Cochran was signed by the Tigers as
a player manager and Ruth his response when he found
out about this in Hawaii. He said, well, I'm another
year older and maybe time to quit, but I will
play if I have a chance to be a manager.
(04:19):
The Yankees suggested that Babe in nineteen thirty four would
go and manage their minor league squad in Newark, New Jersey,
and he said, now, I'm not going to do that.
I'm a major league baseball player and why would I
need to go and manage in Newark. I know this game. Well,
I can take over as a major league manager right now.
(04:40):
They offered to pay him less money again that year,
and he did accept another salary decrease, going from fifty
two thousand in nineteen thirty three down to thirty five
thousand in nineteen thirty four. That was still the most
money made by any major league player that year. His
skills badly diminished. And when he got going in that season,
(05:05):
he had a cold in his back, whatever the heck
that means. He was hit by a pitch that sidelined
him for a while. And then lou gerrig hit a
ground ball when Ruth was on base. The ball hit
Babe above the right ankle and knocked him out for
a bit, and you know, things just were getting worse
and worse and worse. The Yankees, who would finish second
(05:25):
that year, were fortunate in August to see Ruth hit
his seven hundredth home run. But again at that time,
that really happy time, he said that he was almost
done as a regular player and would only play another
year if he was offered the opportunity to manage. He
asked Colonel Rupert again about manager McCarthy. Rupert said he's
(05:50):
still believed McCarthy was his guy.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
The Babe turned down offers from other teams until he
was approached by the Boston Braves.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
During that time, a deal was worked out between the
Yankees and the Boston Braves, who were interested in having
Ruth come over to be a fan draw, and they
dangled in front of Ruth the opportunity later on to manage.
So they gave the Babe twenty five thousand dollars to
(06:19):
be an assistant manager and player and also a vice
president of the team. And so he accepted the deal
and agreed to play and to be an assistant manager
to manager Bill mckeckney, and so off they went into
nineteen thirty five. In the first game of the year,
(06:43):
Ruth hit a two run homer and accounted for the
other two runs that the Braves got as they beat
the Giants four to two. But then his body really
turned against him. He is forty years old, and he
collected two more hits it's one being a homer over
the next month of the baseball season. So things are
(07:05):
really spiraling down for the Babe at this time, and
he starts to talk about being put on the voluntary
retired list and doesn't want to play anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
But Fuchs convinced Ruth to suit up for one more
series of away games.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
He suits up, he goes out, goes on the trip,
starting in Saint Louis, and as we get into late
May of that year, things are just not going very well,
but he continues to play his batting average dropped to
one fifty five. Can you believe that by the time
he gets to Pittsburgh he does have a Ruthian day.
(07:48):
On Saturday, May twenty fifth, Babe comes to the plate
first inning and hits a two run homer. Then he
comes up again, this time off of pitcher Guy Bush,
who was a rival of Ruth, stating back to the
nineteen thirty two World Series where Bush was pitching for
the Cubs and hit Ruth in and at bat, and
(08:11):
so Ruth remembered that, and he hit another two run
shot off of Guy Bush. In the seventh inning, Bush
is still on the mound and Babe comes up and
hits home run number three off of Guy Bush. Bush
later said that he had never seen a ball hit
so hard, and it went over the roof at Forbes Field,
(08:32):
the first ever to travel that distance. Someone measured the
home run as being six hundred feet, the longest in
the history of any game ever played at Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It proved to be that mammoth.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Six hundred foot home run proved to be Ruth's final
hit in the Major leagues. In Philadelphia on May thirtieth, Thursday,
he batted it was Babe, Ruth day in Philadelphia, and
he came to the plate, struck out in the first inning,
and then in the bottom of the first as he
(09:09):
was playing the field, he hurt his knee and left
the game and he would never go back and play again. Now,
the owner, Fuchs, he was saying, come on, Babe, we
got to have you here. Babe said, look, I'm hurt.
I've been invited to get on board the new ocean
liner called the Normandy, a French boat back in New York.
(09:29):
And he said, let me just go down there and heal,
and I'll take a couple of days and then I'll
come back with the club. Fuchs said, no, you're staying
right here with us, and so that was it. Ruth
blew up, Fuchs blew up, and on June second, a Sunday,
Ruth went ahead and retired from the game of baseball,
(09:50):
given his unconditional release by Fuchs. It's interesting the Braves
were ten and twenty seven when Ruth quit and wound
up finishing thirty eight eight and one point fifteen, the
worst record of any National League team in the twentieth
century and.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
A terrific job on the storytelling in production by Carter
McNish and a special thanks to Mike Gibbons who's the
executive director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace in the Museum
in Baltimore, Maryland.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And what a story. Imagine this, folks.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
In nineteen thirty three, ballplayers took a pay cut like
the rest of America, and Babe Ruth Sowery continued to
get cut as his talents and skill faded.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
But what did he do?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
His last hit in his life at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh,
six hundred feet cleared the roof, never to have another
hit again in his life.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
The story of Babe Ruth's retirement here on our American
Stories
And we returned to our American stories. Babe Ruth was
the greatest baseball player of all time, yet time has
also proven to be his greatest enemy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Barna McNish presents.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The story of Babe Ruth's hectic final years as a
baseball professional, as told by Mike Gibbons, who's the executive
director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Our story begins in the nineteen thirty two World Series
between the New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
The Babe came up in Game three and in the
fifth inning, pointed to where he was going to hit
the next pitch and hit it for the longest home
run in Wrigley Field history. It was became known as
the called Shot of one of the most dramatic World
Series moments of all time. Now what happened, though, was
this series, which was won by the Yankees, was shortened.
(01:05):
Not all the games were played, including the last two
which were scheduled for Yankee Stadium, and the Yankees had
to refund one hundred thousand dollars to ticket holders for
the games that were not played. This was during the
Great Depression, The Yankees, although they were making money, did
not have a lot of extra income from the World
Series that year and went into nineteen thirty three having
(01:27):
to cut salaries, including a bunch of money from Babe
Ruth's contract. So Babe takes a cut. He's not happy
about that, but goes off and performs pretty well that season.
He beat Lou Garrig in the home run count that year,
but was a distant second to slugger Jimmy Fox from
(01:48):
the Philadelphia Athletics. In his last game of nineteen thirty three,
Babe Ruth was asked to pitch at Yankee Stadium by
the Yankees, and he said, okay, I'll going to do that.
He had only pitched once in the previous twelve years,
but anyway, he got himself in shape to pitch and
went out and pitched a complete game, six to five
(02:09):
victory over the Boston Red Sox. So Babe still had
it in him. So we come to the end of
nineteen thirty three. Ruth knows he's getting old, and you know,
he says, I really think that I want to stick
around with the Yankees because I'd like to manage. So
he went to Yankees' ownership and asked them if there
(02:33):
was a chance that he could ever manage the New
York Ball Club, and Colonel Rupert, the owner of the Yankees,
said no, I'm going to stick with McCarthy, our current manager,
and to wit he gave McCarthy a three year extension
through nineteen thirty five. Babe Ruth never had a chance
with the Yankees. He was approached about that time to
(02:56):
manage the Boston Red Sox, but Ruth said no. He
still fell that he had too much cachet as a
player with the Yankees and he turned that down. The
White Sox were interested as well, again Ruth showed no interest.
He wanted to play and manage in New York, and
after the nineteen thirty three season, he found out that
(03:16):
the Detroit Tigers really wanted him. The Tiger owner was Navian,
and Frank spoke with the Yankee ownership and asked them
if they could work out some kind of a deal
that would get Ruth to come over to Detroit as
a player manager in exchange for a ballplayer or two.
(03:37):
And they did work out a deal and Navan asked
Ruth to come to Detroit and meet with him, but
the Babe had scheduled a trip to Honolulu with his
family and said I'll talk to you when I get
back from Hawaii. In the meantime, Navan was not real
happy with that response and signed a guy by the
(03:58):
name of Mickey Cochran who had played for Connie Mack
in Philadelphia, and Cochran was signed by the Tigers as
a player manager and Ruth his response when he found
out about this in Hawaii. He said, well, I'm another
year older and maybe time to quit, but I will
play if I have a chance to be a manager.
(04:19):
The Yankees suggested that Babe in nineteen thirty four would
go and manage their minor league squad in Newark, New Jersey,
and he said, now, I'm not going to do that.
I'm a major league baseball player and why would I
need to go and manage in Newark. I know this game. Well,
I can take over as a major league manager right now.
(04:40):
They offered to pay him less money again that year,
and he did accept another salary decrease, going from fifty
two thousand in nineteen thirty three down to thirty five
thousand in nineteen thirty four. That was still the most
money made by any major league player that year. His
skills badly diminished. And when he got going in that season,
(05:05):
he had a cold in his back, whatever the heck
that means. He was hit by a pitch that sidelined
him for a while. And then lou gerrig hit a
ground ball when Ruth was on base. The ball hit
Babe above the right ankle and knocked him out for
a bit, and you know, things just were getting worse
and worse and worse. The Yankees, who would finish second
(05:25):
that year, were fortunate in August to see Ruth hit
his seven hundredth home run. But again at that time,
that really happy time, he said that he was almost
done as a regular player and would only play another
year if he was offered the opportunity to manage. He
asked Colonel Rupert again about manager McCarthy. Rupert said he's
(05:50):
still believed McCarthy was his guy.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
The Babe turned down offers from other teams until he
was approached by the Boston Braves.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
During that time, a deal was worked out between the
Yankees and the Boston Braves, who were interested in having
Ruth come over to be a fan draw, and they
dangled in front of Ruth the opportunity later on to manage.
So they gave the Babe twenty five thousand dollars to
(06:19):
be an assistant manager and player and also a vice
president of the team. And so he accepted the deal
and agreed to play and to be an assistant manager
to manager Bill mckeckney, and so off they went into
nineteen thirty five. In the first game of the year,
(06:43):
Ruth hit a two run homer and accounted for the
other two runs that the Braves got as they beat
the Giants four to two. But then his body really
turned against him. He is forty years old, and he
collected two more hits it's one being a homer over
the next month of the baseball season. So things are
(07:05):
really spiraling down for the Babe at this time, and
he starts to talk about being put on the voluntary
retired list and doesn't want to play anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
But Fuchs convinced Ruth to suit up for one more
series of away games.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
He suits up, he goes out, goes on the trip,
starting in Saint Louis, and as we get into late
May of that year, things are just not going very well,
but he continues to play his batting average dropped to
one fifty five. Can you believe that by the time
he gets to Pittsburgh he does have a Ruthian day.
(07:48):
On Saturday, May twenty fifth, Babe comes to the plate
first inning and hits a two run homer. Then he
comes up again, this time off of pitcher Guy Bush,
who was a rival of Ruth, stating back to the
nineteen thirty two World Series where Bush was pitching for
the Cubs and hit Ruth in and at bat, and
(08:11):
so Ruth remembered that, and he hit another two run
shot off of Guy Bush. In the seventh inning, Bush
is still on the mound and Babe comes up and
hits home run number three off of Guy Bush. Bush
later said that he had never seen a ball hit
so hard, and it went over the roof at Forbes Field,
(08:32):
the first ever to travel that distance. Someone measured the
home run as being six hundred feet, the longest in
the history of any game ever played at Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
It proved to be that mammoth.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
Six hundred foot home run proved to be Ruth's final
hit in the Major leagues. In Philadelphia on May thirtieth, Thursday,
he batted it was Babe, Ruth day in Philadelphia, and
he came to the plate, struck out in the first inning,
and then in the bottom of the first as he
(09:09):
was playing the field, he hurt his knee and left
the game and he would never go back and play again. Now,
the owner, Fuchs, he was saying, come on, Babe, we
got to have you here. Babe said, look, I'm hurt.
I've been invited to get on board the new ocean
liner called the Normandy, a French boat back in New York.
(09:29):
And he said, let me just go down there and heal,
and I'll take a couple of days and then I'll
come back with the club. Fuchs said, no, you're staying
right here with us, and so that was it. Ruth
blew up, Fuchs blew up, and on June second, a Sunday,
Ruth went ahead and retired from the game of baseball,
(09:50):
given his unconditional release by Fuchs. It's interesting the Braves
were ten and twenty seven when Ruth quit and wound
up finishing thirty eight eight and one point fifteen, the
worst record of any National League team in the twentieth
century and.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
A terrific job on the storytelling in production by Carter
McNish and a special thanks to Mike Gibbons who's the
executive director of the Babe Ruth Birthplace in the Museum
in Baltimore, Maryland.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And what a story. Imagine this, folks.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
In nineteen thirty three, ballplayers took a pay cut like
the rest of America, and Babe Ruth Sowery continued to
get cut as his talents and skill faded.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
But what did he do?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
His last hit in his life at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh,
six hundred feet cleared the roof, never to have another
hit again in his life.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
The story of Babe Ruth's retirement here on our American
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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