Babe Ruth's called shot

• 1. Introduction

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  Babe Ruth's called shot stands as one of baseball's most debated moments, a single gesture on the 1st of October, 1932, that has never been fully explained. At Wrigley Field in Chicago, with the score tied 4-4 in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the World Series, Ruth stepped to the plate against Cubs pitcher Charlie Root. The crowd had been pelting him with lemons. The Cubs bench had been riding him all game. And then Ruth did something with his hand that people have argued about ever since.

  Film of the at-bat survives. The gesture is plainly visible. But what it meant, whether Ruth was promising a home run or simply letting the Cubs know what he thought of them, is a question that no photograph, no film, and no eyewitness account has settled. What is certain is that the ball Ruth hit traveled to the deepest part of center field, estimated by some at up to 490 feet, and landed near the flagpole he may or may not have been pointing at. The story that followed the ball into the bleachers would prove just as powerful as the hit itself.

• 2. A Series Built on Grudges

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  Joe McCarthy, the Yankees manager in 1932, carried a specific resentment into the World Series. The Cubs had fired him in 1930, even after he had won the National League pennant the previous season. That wound had not healed.

  The other source of friction was Mark Koenig, a former Yankee who had helped the club win World Championships in 1927 and 1928, then was traded to Chicago mid-season in 1932. When it came time to divide World Series bonus money, the Cubs voted to give Koenig only half a share, using his mid-season arrival as the reason. The Yankees considered this an insult to one of their own.

  Before Game 1, Ruth reportedly shouted to Koenig that his new teammates were "cheap bums." The Cubs players fired back, other Yankees joined in, and the two teams spent Games 1 and 2 hurling insults from their dugouts. The Yankees won both games in New York. By the time the series moved to Chicago for Game 3, the hostility had spread to the fans. Ruth and his wife Claire were reportedly cursed and spat upon as they arrived at Wrigley Field.

• 3. What Happened at the Plate

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  Throughout Game 3, fans threw lemons at Ruth in left field and at the plate. Ruth had already hit one home run earlier in the game and had also missed a shoestring catch that let the Cubs tie the score, which only intensified the heckling.

  With the score 4-4 in the fifth inning, Ruth took strike one from Charlie Root. The Cubs players jeered and the crowd poured on the insults. Ruth raised his hand and pointed. At what, exactly, nobody has ever agreed on. He took strike two, then repeated the pointing gesture after each pitch.

  Root's next delivery was a curveball. Ruth hit it to the deepest part of center field, near the flagpole, with estimates of the distance running as high as 490 feet. The ground distance to the center-field corner, somewhat right of straightaway center, was 440 feet. Broadcaster Tom Manning called it over the radio: "The ball is going, going, going, high into the center-field stands... and it is a home run!" Ruth later described the hit as going "past the flagpole," which stood behind the scoreboard at the 440 corners. A strong wind that day aided the ball's carry.

  As Ruth rounded first base, he looked toward the Cubs dugout and made a waving-off gesture with his left hand. Near third, he gave the suddenly silent bench a two-armed pushing motion. The Associated Press game report noted that Ruth raised four fingers to signify a home run as he ran the bases. In the stands, a 12-year-old named John Paul Stevens watched the at-bat with his father. Franklin D. Roosevelt, then a presidential candidate, was also in attendance and reportedly laughed as Ruth circled the bases. Lou Gehrig, batting next, hit Root's following pitch into the right-field seats for his second home run of the day. The Yankees won 7-5 and swept the series the next day with a 13-6 victory.

• 4. How the Legend Was Made

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  Ruth's second home run in Game 3 might have vanished into the box scores had it not been for Joe Williams, a sports editor for the Scripps-Howard newspapers. In a late edition printed the same day as the game, Williams ran a headline in the New York World-Telegram that read: "RUTH CALLS SHOT AS HE PUTS HOME RUN NO. 2 IN SIDE POCKET." The phrase "called his shot" came from billiards terminology. Williams' summary stated that Ruth "pointed to center and punched a screaming liner to a spot where no ball had been hit before."

  The wide reach of the Scripps-Howard chain gave the story momentum. Within days, other reporters were writing about it, including some who had not been at the game. The public was primed to believe it. They already knew Ruth's reputation for grand gestures, including his well-publicized promise to a sick child named Johnny Sylvester that he would hit a home run.

  Contemporary accounts from the day of the game told a more ambiguous story. Writer Damon Runyon described Ruth simply as engaging in "brisk repartee" with the Cubs and fans, making gestures with his hands "in case his voice was not heard." Another account, by William McCullough of the Brooklyn Times-Union, suggested Ruth had signaled a home run with two strikes on him. The two versions could not be reconciled, and Ruth himself was not initially helpful. He told one reporter he had only been pointing at the dugout to remind the Cubs he had one more strike. When another outlet had already printed the called-shot version, Ruth responded, "It's in the papers, isn't it?"

  Soon Ruth leaned into the story. In an interview with Chicago sports reporter John Carmichael, he said he just wanted to give the ball a good ride. Over the years, his versions grew more colorful. For one newsreel, he voiced over the scene saying, "I looked out at center field and I pointed. I said, 'I'm gonna hit the next pitched ball right past the flagpole!'" His 1948 autobiography gave the fullest account, in which he described pointing to the bleachers before Root's first pitch and then again before the final swing.

• 5. Root's Side of the Story

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  Charlie Root won more than 200 games in his career, but he could not escape the called shot. It followed him for the rest of his life, and he spent decades denying that it ever happened.

  When producers of the 1948 film The Babe Ruth Story asked Root to play himself, he turned them down after learning that the film would depict Ruth pointing to center field. Root's stated position was blunt: "Ruth did not point at the fence before he swung. If he had made a gesture like that, well, anybody who knows me knows that Ruth would have ended up on his ass." A brushback pitch, he meant.

  In 1942, on the set of The Pride of the Yankees, former Ruth teammate Babe Herman reintroduced Root and Ruth to one another. Herman later recounted the exchange to baseball historian Donald Honig. Root asked Ruth directly whether he had ever pointed to center field before hitting the ball. Ruth's reply was candid: "I know I didn't, but it made a hell of a story, didn't it?" Root's teammate, catcher Gabby Hartnett, also denied the called shot. Baseball historian Michael Bryson offered a different explanation entirely: Ruth had been pointing at a loose board that was swinging free in the outfield wall, and Cubs personnel knew it, walking over to hammer it back into place.

  Joe Williams, the reporter whose headline started the legend, eventually came to doubt what he had written. Ruth biographer Robert Creamer later concluded that while Ruth had called his shot in a general sense through his words and gestures toward the Cubs, he did not believe Ruth specifically pointed to center field.

• 6. What the Films Show

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  In the 1970s, a 16-mm home movie of the at-bat surfaced. It had been shot by amateur filmmaker Matt Miller Kandle, Sr., and had been seen only by family and friends until the late 1980s. Two frames appeared in the 1988 book Babe Ruth: A Life in Pictures by Lawrence S. Ritter and Mark Rucker. The film aired on a February 1994 Fox television program called Front Page, and later that year Ken Burns used still images from it in his documentary Baseball.

  The film was shot from the grandstands behind home plate, off to the third base side. Ruth's gesture is visible, but the direction of his arm is not conclusive. Some who viewed it argued his arm was pointing more toward left field, toward the Cubs bench. On the Front Page episode, Yankee legends Mickey Mantle, Moose Skowron, Catfish Hunter, Enos Slaughter, and Ron Guidry watched the footage. Mantle believed the most visible pointing was toward the Cubs dugout, though he noticed Ruth briefly pointed toward Root or toward center field just before the pitch, partially blocked from view by Hartnett returning the ball.

  In 1999, a second film came to light, shot by inventor Harold Warp during the only Major League Baseball game he ever attended. ESPN acquired the rights and aired it as part of its SportsCentury program in 2000. Many who saw Warp's footage felt it showed Ruth shouting at Root or the Cubs dugout while pointing, not at center field. The authors of the book Yankees Century concluded from the Warp film that the called shot did not happen. Leigh Montville's 2006 book The Big Bam took a more cautious position, asserting that neither film answers the question.

  In 2020, a separate piece of evidence appeared: an audio clip from a radio show that had originally aired on the 6th of October, 1932. In it, Lou Gehrig stated that Ruth was indeed pointing toward the flagpole in center field.

• 7. Eyewitnesses and Posterity

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  Pat Pieper, the Cubs public-address announcer who sat near the wall between home plate and third base, spoke with a Chicago Tribune sports columnist in 1966. Pieper recalled that after two strikes, Ruth told Cubs pitcher Guy Bush, "That's strike two, all right. But watch this," and then pointed to center field. "You bet your life Babe Ruth called it," Pieper said.

  John Paul Stevens, who attended the game as a 12-year-old with his father, later became an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Stevens stated that Ruth pointed to the center-field scoreboard and then hit the ball out of the park. Lou Gehrig's reaction was recorded: "What do you think of the nerve of that big monkey. Imagine the guy calling his shot and getting away with it."

  Yankee athletic trainer Erle V. Painter shared a different memory with the Baseball Hall of Fame. He described Ruth holding up one finger after strike one, then two fingers after strike two, and then sweeping his left arm to point at the center-field fence. Bill Dickey, the Hall-of-Fame catcher, gave an account to Washington Post columnist Shirley Povich that cut against the legend. Dickey said Ruth was furious about a quick pitch from Root, pointing at the pitcher and calling him names, warning Root not to do that again.

  The 1948 film The Babe Ruth Story, which starred William Bendix as Ruth, took its material from Ruth's autobiography and presented the called shot as fact. Two biographical films in the 1990s also dramatized the gesture without qualification, one of which showed Ruth hitting the ball over Wrigley Field's ivy-covered wall, a detail that was historically impossible because the ivy was not planted until five years after the 1932 series. The jersey Ruth wore during the game was sold at auction on the 25th of August, 2024, for $24.12 million through Heritage Auctions, making it the most expensive sports collectible in history at that time, surpassing the $12.6 million paid for a 1952 Topps card featuring Mickey Mantle in 2022.