When a fighter makes good, newspapers always relate, "He is good to his mother." Many people laugh. The phrase has become a bromide.

The sports writers continually remind that Babe Ruth is my inspiration. But he isn't. He's my pal, and he has been my adviser. But my mother is my inspiration, my sweetheart, my manager, my all. Around her revolves all of my activities.

My tale is unusual, at least. Let me tell it to you.

The scene was Sportsman's Park, St. Louis; the occasion, the final game of the 1928 World's Series between the Yankees and Cardinals; the situation:

Ruth had just hit his third home run of the game, a tremendous performance in more ways than one. Only an inning or two before, he had warned the St. Louis fans by pantomime and word of mouth that he would hit three home runs before the day was done!

He now was pedaling his way around third base and so into the plate, while the stands rocked and roared. A moment later, the demonstration having settled down to a barely audible hum, Willie Sherdel, Cardinal lefthander at the time, took his place on the rubber, wound up — and I hit the first ball pitched for a home run into the right-field bleachers!

So much for Scene Number One.

Number Two was Wrigley Field, Chicago, during the third game of the 1932 World's Series between the Yankees and Cubs. Except for the change of date, opponent, and city, the situation was the same. Ruth, heckled by the Cubs from the-bench, had pointed to the farthest section of the centerfield bleachers with his index finger to show what he meant to do. And then he did it!

Probably no gesture in all the history of baseball was the equal of this, and as he ambled around the bases in that peculiar sidling run of his, the place was a madhouse. It was Ruth's second home run of the game and his third of the series.

Finally everything settled down again. The Cubs went back to their positions, Charley Root resumed his place on the rubber, wound up — and I hit the first ball pitched for a home run into the right-field bleachers!

I was probably the most surprised man in the park on both occasions. I didn't swing hard. I wasn't trying to imitate Ruth, but merely to meet the ball, to get one safe. And I was secretly pleased when the reporters missed the remarkable coincidence of those two homers of mine, because they're always saying that Babe is my inspiration, my guiding spirit; that without him I might have been just another ball player, probably no worse than the average, certainly no better. And that's only partly true.

The Babe and I are not competitors — never have been. We haven't fought each other; we've fought together for the good of both and the ball club, so that when one hits a home run the other is able to say to himself with satisfaction:

"That's one for us."

The Babe himself outlined this idea in a talk we had six or seven years ago, when it became apparent that I had something of a career before me as a slugger. Anyhow, he came up to me one day and began to get confidential — something like this:

"Say, young fellow" — I was always "young fellow" to him in those days — "there's a lot of fun in this game, but the money's the thing we're after. It's over there" — pointing — "back of those fences. All we have to do is go get it! The more balls we hit over the wall, the more World's Series we'll figure in. That's where the money is. Suppose we forget each other and remember that."

I have never forgotten it and I'm morally certain that he still feels the same way, too. In any case, there never was a question of jealousy between us, even when I ran well ahead of him for most of the 1927 season. And I have no trace of the inferiority complex toward Ruth that the reporters love to talk about. I'm shy, yes. The late Miller Huggins used to say that I was diffident everywhere except up at the plate and out around first base, and that he wasn't even certain about me there either!

But I have a pretty definite idea of my value and I know I can hit a baseball very hard and very far. The point is that I do this in a pretty matter-of-fact way, whereas Ruth hits them with a flourish of drama that is instinctive, natural, and all his own. In other words, there is only one Babe Ruth, so why argue with facts? I might be jealous if he took the play away from me in runs driven in, since that's my baby. But otherwise it would be almost impossible to feel envy for a man who is as unselfish as Ruth. He's for everybody else. So why shouldn't we be for him?

I went to the High School of Commerce, playing baseball and football, and working through the summer months. In my fourth year I had several college scholarships offered to me but didn't give the matter a thought. After all, I wasn't going to college. I was going to work. So what good was a scholarship?

That was only another of my mistakes.

"You're to be a civil engineer," my mother said firmly. "I've always wanted that for you. Now you're going to have it."

That fall found me up at Columbia University, waiting on the table, trying to study, and playing a little baseball and football in between. For two years there I lived like a time clock. Up at six thirty in the morning and over to the dining hall to set the tables; busy as a fool there until eight fifty, when I dropped everything and hustled across the campus to classes. Then football or baseball in the late afternoon, depending on the season, after which I jumped out of my uniform, under a shower, into my clothes, and finally on to the street. The next stop was the dining hall again, where I was busy waiting on table and washing dishes until nine at night — when, outside of a few hours for study, I had the rest of the time to myself.

I guess I didn't have much time for study, in fact, but I was reasonably happy. That is, for a while. My father had lost a lot of time from work owing to illness, and we were having a tough time meeting our bills.

Finally my mother was taken ill with double pneumonia — and the bottom fell out of my college career! We were, five months behind in the rent and I knew that something had to be done. I had received several major-league offers from the Yankees and Senators but had dismissed them. I was to be a civil engineer. But now I signed with the Yanks. Very well do I remember my introduction to Ruth. He always has the first locker near the door at the Yankee Stadium, and he was getting into his uniform when they brought me in and introduced us. I mumbled something.

"Hello, young fellow," he boomed in that hearty natural way of his. "Hope you like us. We ain't so bad and we ain't so good, but we strike a fair average. Hope you stick with us."

I was out with Hartford before the end of the season. But the die had been cast. Not only did I have a good year up there, but the fairness and friendliness of the ball field had gotten into my blood and warmed my heart to it.

Tris Speaker had been a boyhood idol. And the first time we passed each other on the diamond, he smiled and nodded to me. I lived in a glow for days after that. Then we went from Cleveland to Chicago.

"Hello, Columbia!" I looked up to find Eddie Collins, himself a football and baseball man at Columbia in the old days. We had a great visit together, talking it over.

I hung on through the following season, and then came my chance early in 1925 and I've never been out of the line-up since. I was still awed by Ruth and kept away from him as much as possible. But he seemed to like me and made a point of talking to me on the bench between innings and sitting with me on road trips, and after a while my shyness wore off and I got to know him for what he was and is. He's just one of the boys, unaffected by all the attention he's got and demanding no consideration that any other player on the club doesn't receive.

By the time I had enough money to go back to college it was too late. I was part of baseball and baseball was a very big part of me.

However, I went out that first winter and got a job with the electric company — just in case! I was still pretty awkward around first base. I guess I am yet.

Off the ball grounds I'm just a plain comfort-loving citizen who likes to go to bed early and take life at a slow pace. I smoke a little, drink a little beer, like fishing and ice skating, and just recently I've begun to go for golf.

I'm no Good-Time Charley, in other words.

The Babe himself found out in time that it doesn't pay to be one, and nowadays you never see him on Broadway unless he is going to a show or a fight or a hockey match. Still, even though we didn't go out together in those early days, we got to be lifelong friends — and those people who say I always take the worst of it with Ruth just don't understand how I feel about friendship.

I've been asked many times what pitchers are the toughest for me to hit, and invariably I answer, "They're all tough," because it's true. They wouldn't be up there in the major leagues if they weren't good, and the best you can hope to do against them is strike a fair average.

When I broke into the regular line-up, Walter Johnson was just about getting through. But you couldn't prove it by what he showed me. He knew all the answers by that time and his fast one was still a puff of wind as it went by. Grove and Earnshaw and Ferrell and a lot of others came on later, but I got one break out of it. I never had to hit against Herb Pennock when he was at the top. There was a left-hander. Boy, I salute him! He had everything. So did Alexander, a tricky old bird with perfect coördination and without nerves. You never knew what he was going to do, and while you were still trying to guess he did it!

I always thought that Tony Lazzeri hadn't been quite ready for that last strike Alexander pitched to him, practically deciding the 1926 series in favor of the Cardinals. The bases were filled, two were out, and it looked as though we were due, particularly when Haines had to leave the game with a torn finger nail. He turned the pitching job over to Alexander.

He took plenty of time coming across the field from the bull pen. Having stalled long enough to get Tony anxious, Alexander changed his routine swiftly. Still outwardly careless, he grabbed the ball and took his five warm-up pitches as fast as O'Farrell, the catcher, could get the ball back. Then, without a glance at anybody, he began pitching to Lazzeri just as he always pitched, rapidly and with no attempt to steady himself. The effect he always gave on the mound was of a pitcher working in batting practice.

Finally the count got to three and two, and it seemed that even the apparently indifferent Alexander must take time, at a moment as critical as this, to kind of stiffen himself for the show-down. But he didn't. Just as though it were a ten-cent ball game, he took that quick little wind-up of his and broke a low-curve ball down around the knees, and Tony missed it. We were one run behind at the time and never caught up. I always thought that maybe Tony was a little surprised by the fact that the ball had left Alexander's hand so soon.

Anyhow, it stands to reason that major-league pitchers are just as good as the hitters or they wouldn't be up there. Even that exhibition of English cricketing we seemed to be doing in the last World's Series was hardly a normal outburst. Our hitters just weren't that good and the Cub pitchers just couldn't have been that bad. I think they became panicky when, after all their riding and chattering, we just smiled quietly and busted the next one.

Ruth began it. I might add that he also finished it. But at the time I don't think he meant anything in particular, except that he was a little burned up when he heard that Mark Koenig, who had once been with our club, had been cut in for only a half share of the receipts by the Cubs. He had joined the club late in the season, true enough, but even so, he had practically won the pennant for them.

So, without thinking much about anything, Ruth cupped his hands and hollered at Koenig from the bench during the practice before the first game:

"Hey, Mark! You'd better get four for four today or they'll cut you to a quarter share."

By "four for four" he meant a perfect average at the plate, with four hits in four times up. If the Cubs had let that ride, the matter would have been dropped. But they opened up on the Babe with a storm of abuse which got pretty personal as the series wore on, and I guess we weren't so far behind. However, we kept our mind on our business and maybe the Cubs didn't — or else you can say that we can take it and the Cubs can't. They played like a high-school team in that first game, making mistakes I didn't think were possible on a major-league field.

The funny thing was that the worse they got the louder they chattered, which made them a little comical. Ruth was "yellow," he was "a big dog," etc., and all the time he was handling their pitchers as though they were a lot of cricket bowlers.

We won the first two games in a romp and then headed for Chicago, with the Yanks still hitting and the Cubs still yelping. They must have felt pretty good about getting home, because they opened up from the bench with a tirade that made their New York performance seem pale by comparison.

When Ruth came to bat in one of the early innings, they were all set to give him a blast that would blow his ears back. The big fellow glanced over at them casually, and then, just as though it didn't really matter after all, he pointed to the farthest point of the outfield fence in dead centerfield and said:

"That's where I'm going to hit it this time."

The Cubs howled in derision and their coach stood up in front of the dugout to lead the jeers. Charley Root, the pitcher, then burned one across for a strike and Ruth "took it." That is, he didn't swing. It looked like a good ball to hit, but apparently that wasn't his plan.

As the umpire called the strike, the Cubs leaped up in a frenzy. But all Ruth did was to solemnly raise one finger as though he were keeping score for them. A few moments later Root got another one across and the Cubs went crazy again. But the Babe didn't even glance at the ball as it went by. He just kept his position at the plate with his legs spread a little, took his left hand off the bat, and raised two fingers. Then he nodded significantly toward the centerfield bleachers.

The rest is history. Everybody knows that on the next ball pitched he hit one on a line right where he said he would. He had done the unbelievable. He had called his shot with an almost impossible home run into an almost impossible spot. That finished the Cubs. They didn't even lift their heads when I hit the next ball pitched for a home run that nipped the cord on the flagpole in rightfield as it went by. In fact, I doubt whether my hit attracted much attention anywhere, and for reasons cited early in this story, I'm glad it was so.

When we got back to New York we found the town hailing us as "the greatest of all Yankee teams." All I can say to that is we are better than some people seem to think and not so good as the 1927 club, which to my mind was far and away the best club I've seen since I first began watching baseball.

When my number is up I'll even manage a club in the minor leagues just to stay in the game, but I don't intend to go to the minors as a player. It wouldn't be enjoyable and I'd only be taking another man's job that I don't need. For the depression didn't get me, as it got so many of my friends, and I'm financially safe now.

So life with the Gehrigs is a pretty fine thing, perhaps a little dull for some tastes, but perfect for a family that asks only to live amiably, quietly, and with contentment. Maybe we're missing something, but I can't help thinking that people who see life as though from a train window must be missing something too. They're going too fast to get anything but a fleeting glimpse of what it's all about.

I'm not rich in the accepted sense of the word, but what millionaire can buy my serenity? What king can live exactly as he wishes, with an obligation to nothing except his conscience? In fact, I have yet to meet the man who can look backward over his shoulder as he passes his thirtieth birthday and say, as I do:

"It's all been worth while."

Publication Date: August 19, 1933