The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth by Leigh Montville Page B

learning. He hit well at times, but also had periods when he struggled. There were no Fayetteville homers. The best part was that he continued to take that big uppercut swing, and no one tried to change him.
    The Orioles went on the road, and more adventures arrived in a kaleidoscope whirl. He was in Buffalo and Rochester, Toronto and Montreal, Jersey City and Newark. New towns, new country, new language. (Just the picture of him walking around Montreal is a smile.) The Orioles who had survived the final roster cuts were a veteran group, with only Dunn’s son, Jack Jr., close to Ruth’s age. Ruth played cards, was included in a clique of Baltimore-born players, but also spent a lot of time in his own travels.
    A perfect story from Creamer’s book found him sitting on the curb outside the Forrest Hotel on West 49th Street in New York at two in the morning. Outfielder George Twombley, coming home, saw him there.
    “What are you doing?” Twombley asked.
    “I’m waiting for a girl,” Ruth replied.
    “What girl?”
    “I don’t know. I’m just waiting. The boys at reform school said if you’re in New York and you want a woman, all you have to do is wait for a streetwalker to come along.”
    “Maybe you should go to bed.”
    The team Dunn had put together was very good. On July 4, 1914, it was in first place in the International League with a 47–22 record. Ruth had a 14–6 record and was hitting long shots when he connected with the ball, which wasn’t too often. Alas, nobody in Baltimore had noticed or cared. The total number of local people who had seen Babe Ruth perform in his debut year was under 5,000.
    A new restaurant in the neighborhood had taken all of the old restaurant’s business. Directly across the street from the Orioles’ home at Back River Park was Terrapin Park, the newly built home of the new Baltimore Terrapins of the new Federal League. The citizens of Baltimore, chagrined that the once-proud Orioles had been dropped from the major leagues in 1903 for lack of support (the franchise shifted to New York, a sign that Baltimore had fallen to second-class status), saw the new league as an answer. They thought the Federal League would evolve into a third major league and the Terrapins would be a proud member. The day Ruth confronted the “waist-waste” problem, 28,000 people were across the street watching the Terrapins. Fewer than 1,000 watched him battle the fabled Giants. He later pitched a shutout against Rochester with only 11 paid customers in the stands. Even the vendors had gone across the street to work the more profitable crowd in the park that had been built in slightly more than three months, paint still drying as it opened.
    Dunn estimated he was losing $1,000 per day. He was a baseball businessman, not a rich man. He had put up his life’s savings, plus a $10,000 loan from Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack, to buy the team. This cash drain could not continue. Faced with bankruptcy, he took a solid business approach: he decided to sell off his assets. His assets were his players.
    One of the first he tried to sell, alas, was his discovery from St. Mary’s. In Newark for a Sunday doubleheader, Dunn invited Mack to come up from Philadelphia to take another look at the kid who had beaten the A’s in spring training. Dunn started the kid in the first game, but the kid was shaky, gone by the fourth inning. No matter. Dunn started him again in the second game. The kid pitched a 1–0 shutout.
    “He’s everything you say he is,” Mack told Dunn at the end. “In fact, he’s worth more money than you’re asking. But…”
    Mack also had financial problems and at the end of the year would sell off his own stars. Dunn had to look elsewhere.
    He had an offer from the Cincinnati Reds for a package including Ruth, and John McGraw had expressed interest, but Dunn wound up doing business with the Red Sox. Owner Joe Lannin had advanced Dunn $3,000 to make a payroll, which didn’t hurt