Details and other notes may be found at the end of this text. [Illustration: © _Acme_ GEORGE HERMAN RUTH ] BABE RUTH’S Own Book of Baseball By GEORGE HERMAN RUTH A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by arrangement with G. P. Putnam’s Sons Printed in U. S. A. BABE RUTH’S OWN BOOK OF BASEBALL Copyright, 1928 by George Herman Ruth By arrangement with Christy Walsh [Illustration: Knickerbocker Press logo] Made in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE The Baltimore River front—Street corner baseball—Days at St. Mary’s—The first contract—A word of advice from Brother Gilbert—The big leagues at last—The climb upward—Aid from team-mates—A $70,000 contract—Looking back 3 CHAPTER II Baseball like a battle—Two big divisions, offense and defense—What they are—Old-fashioned defensive play—The shift to modern offensive baseball—Great defensive teams of history—Some pitching marvels—Pitching the keystone of defensive play—Offensive stars of today 19 CHAPTER III Pitching the keynote of defense—The pitcher’s job—Why young pitchers fail—Control as a pitching factor—How to obtain control—Alexander the old master—Shocker gets by on “nothing”—Shawkey gives a few words of advice to “rookies”—Practice counts most 32 CHAPTER IV Studying the batter—Shocker a marvel—His system—Pennock’s style of pitching—His pitching rule—Hoyt weighs in with advice—Pitching to weakness and strength—Playing the comers—Mixing them up—Quinn a bluffer—How Hoyt uses his fast one 44 CHAPTER V The pitching motion—How Zahniser betrayed his curve ball—Ruth’s tongue gets him into trouble—Sherry Smith catches runners off first base—♦Hinkey Haines’ experience—Slow ball pitching—Why it is valuable—The type of hitters who are fooled by slow stuff—Experience counts—Fielding aids pitcher 57 ♦ “Hinkey Haines,” replaced with “Hinkey Haines’” CHAPTER VI What makes the curve balls curve—The fast ball—The “hook”—Freak deliveries—The spit ball—The screw ball—Its purpose—The knuckle ball—Rommel and Pipgras use it best—Curve ball pitchers who have made baseball history—Fast balls that are tricky—A few yarns of pitching greatness 71 CHAPTER VII The infield—The greatest play of the 1927 world series—Joe Dugan pulled it—Lazzeri spikes Pirate guns—Great second base combinations—The double play—The snap throw to base—Great arms in baseball—Travis Jackson gets Jake Daubert’s goat—Casey Stengel tells one—What to look for in infield play 92 CHAPTER VIII Playing the outfield—The kid idea—Stars who have scintillated in the outfield—Great outfielders of all time—Their methods of play—What the outfielder needs—What he must look out for—Playing the hitter—Making the throw—Some great outfield plays—Sam Rice’s great catch—Harry Hooper, the old master 106 CHAPTER IX The catcher—His importance in the game—Directing the play—Famous batteries of other days—How the catcher can make or break a pitcher—Handling high fouls the catcher’s toughest job—John Grabowski’s great play that resulted in a change of rules—Holding men on bases—The snap throw to first—Signs and what they are—Ray Schalk the master 121 CHAPTER X Team play—What it is—What it means—Signs and how they operate—The pitch-out—Backing up the throw—The cut-off play—How it was invented—The coaches, and their duties—Miller Huggins puts one over—The McGraw coaching system—A world series episode—The old practice of signal stealing—How it operated—Out-of-date now—Dangers of signal stealing 135 CHAPTER XI Cobb is game’s greatest natural hitter—Is master of style—A few Cobb yarns—Swing hitters and choke hitters—Importance and weakness of each style—Gehrig’s hitting style—What makes him great—Willie Keeler’s motto—The value of waiting—Correcting batting faults 149 CHAPTER XII Hitting style—Naturalness at the plate—Simmons’ freak batting stance—Joey Sewell has ideal stance—The Ruthian swing—How it develops power—Selecting the proper bat—Timing an important factor in hitting—How to improve timing and swing 166 CHAPTER XIII Hits are valuable only in so far as they score runs—Levsen pitches two hit game and loses—Real test of hitting is ability to smack ball when hits mean runs—The danger of “tightening up”—Hitting slumps and how to...