Then two things happened: Babe Comes Home went on general release, and Ruth suddenly came to life. Goodness knows exactly how the movie galvanized him, but its release coincided exactly and peculiarly with his hitting a lot of home runs—5 in two days, one of which, in Philadelphia, was hit so far that it left the park and cleared a two-story house across the street. By June 7, Ruth’s total had jumped to 18—a much more respectable and promising number. Two days later against Chicago at Yankee Stadium, Ruth stole home plate—something that thirty-two-year-old men with paunches didn’t normally do.
...more
