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Babe Ruth punches umpire in 1917...
Babe Ruth punches umpire in 1917...
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June 24, 1917
SPRINGFIELD REPUBLICAN, Massachusetts, June 24, 1917
* Babe Ruth punches umpire
* Clarence 'Brick' Owens
* Boston Red Sox baseball
* Ernie Shore's perfect game
The sport's section (page 20) has a two column heading: "Shore Pitches Perfect Game" with subheads: "Hurls Perfect Game" "Ruth Bangs Umpire Owens and Is Chased..." and more with box scores. (see) See below for amazing game story.
Other news, sports and advertisements of the day. Complete in 40+ pages, minor margin wear, generally nice.
source: this day in history: On this day in history, 1917, Babe Ruth was on the mound for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park against the Washington Senators. He threw four straight balls, at least as far as the umpire, Clarence “Brick” Owens, was concerned, walking Ray Morgan. Ruth thought the second and the fourth pitch were both strikes, so charged the umpire and reportedly yelled at him, “If you’d go to bed at night, you *expletive*, you could keep your eyes open long enough in the daytime to see when a ball goes over the plate!”
As you might imagine, the umpire didn’t take too kindly to this and told Ruth that if he didn’t shut up and get back to the mound, he’d be thrown out of the game. Ruth then yelled at him, “Throw me out and I’ll punch ya right in the jaw!” Owens then threw him out and Ruth attempted to punch him in the jaw… He missed though, and instead hit a glancing blow behind the umpire’s ear, but nevertheless knocked Owens down.
While today this sort of thing would have landed the player in question in pretty major hot water, it wasn’t really all that uncommon for fans or players to attack umpires in that era, though still looked down upon in the American League and National League (not as much in many other leagues of the day). For this act, Ruth was fined $100 (about $1600 today), given a 10 game suspension, and forced to give a public apology.
What made this particularly attacking of an umpire important was that when Ernie Shore came in to replace Ruth on the mound, the catcher, Sam Agnew, (who incidentally replaced catcher Chester “Pinch” Thomas who was also ejected with Ruth), threw out the runner on first trying to steal second. Shore then retired the next 26 batters in a row without giving up a hit or a walk, winning the game 4-0. As such, this was ruled to be a “perfect game” because Shore had been on the mound for all 27 outs, though in the 1990s, it was downgraded to simply a “combined no-hitter”.
Category: The 20th Century
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