This is amazing stuff. Courtesy of the University of South Carolina and ESPN’s Keith Olbermann, we now have raw video footage of Babe Ruth flying out against the great Walter Johnson back in 1925. The subplots to this video are absolutely amazing
As Olbermann points out in the video, Ruth’s at-bat against Johnson came 41 days after he played his last game. The greatest power hitter of all-time was out for a month and a half due to an abdominal strain.
In any event, if you don’t get chills watching this video, you simply aren’t American. Two of the greatest players to ever put on a uniform going up against one another nearly 90 years ago and crossing paths with one another down the first-base line.
With all due respect to the major American sports, this is baseball. This is America’s real pastime. And this video embeds that idea right into our hearts and minds less than a week until opening day.
Oh. And towards the end of the video, you will notice a young man behind Ruth who appears to be monkeying around in the Yankees dugout. His name? Lou Gehrig. The time? About two hours before he started his consecutive games-played streak.
Photo: Baseball Fever