Reds right-hander Michael Lorenzen wasn't too impressed that he matched a feat Babe Ruth accomplished 98 years ago. We'll make it a big deal for him.
On June 13, 1921, Ruth, playing for the Yankees vs. the Tigers at the Polo Grounds, was the starting and winning pitcher, hit two home runs and finished the game as New York's center fielder. No one else had gotten a win, homered and played in the field in the same game until Lorenzen did it Wednesday. He earned the W in relief, went deep in his only at-bat and played the ninth inning in center field at Great American Ball Park.
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Sporting News, being part of baseball history, wanted to relive Ruth's historic afternoon through the box score of the game. This is what stood out the most in TSN's nearly century-old recap:
1. The Bambino was on his way to breaking the single-season home run record (54) he had set the previous year. He finished the '21 season with 59. Ruth was also just weeks away from becoming baseball's all-time home run king. He passed Roger Connor in midseason (the exact number has changed over the decades with more research). Then as now, teams were complaining about the ball; one of the terms back then was "rabbit ball," as in the ball was jumping.
2. Hello, Wally Pipp. You might want to pay attention to a city kid who's about to graduate from high school. He's going to be playing down the street at Columbia University next year — fellow named Gehrig.
3. Yes, that is THE Home Run Baker, whose claim to fame was leading the AL in long balls for three four straight seasons and going deep twice in the 1911 World's Series, as it was known then. Baker had 96 career round-trippers when he finished his career with the Yankees in 1922.
4. Ruth's feat was, of course, doubly as impressive as Lorenzen's. It was also doubly historic; Retrosheet points out in its play-by-play account that Ruth's second homer was the first drive to reach the Polo Grounds' center-field bleachers, a clout estimated by TSN correspondents at 460 to 475 feet from home plate. (Even better, the homer was "against the wind," Gus Rooney wrote in the June 16, 1921, edition from Boston, where the Tigers settled after fleeing New York.)
5. Ty Cobb set a career high (later tied) with 12 home runs in '21, at age 34. Cobb grew to hate Ruth, not least for making power popular and changing the game for what he believed was the worse.
6. The Yankees made Ruth an everyday outfielder after they bought him from the Red Sox. This was just his second mound appearance for the New Yorkers, which helps to explain why he only went five-plus innings. His lone strikeout victim? Cobb.
7. Poor Howard Ehmke. The Tigers were in the midst of a two-week Eastern road trip, and in those days, pitching staffs rarely went beyond nine men in midseason. He had to wear this one.
