State

BABE RUTH Л Mighty Clout Finally the rain let up. and the first practice game of the season was set for Saturday. March 7. The players were divided into two units, the Yannigans and Buzzards. Ruth played shortstop for the Buzzards. Among the other players listed on the lineup were such names as Lefty Cottrell. Caporcl. Billy Mari- sette. Jarman. Hurney. Chuck McKinley and in centerficld, a Balti¬ more sportswriter named Roger Pippin who recorded the game's highlights for the Baltimore News-Post: “In the second inning, with Cottrell on first, the next batter made a hit that will live in the memory of all who saw it. That clouter was George Ruth, the southpaw from St. Mary’s School. The ball carried so far to right field that he walked around the bases." The headline in the next day's Baltimore Sun read “Homer by Ruth Feature of Game." The accompanying article noted. “The youngster landed on a fastball and circled the bases before Billy Marrisette had picked it up in deep right field." Of the famed hit. another Baltimore paper said simply "Babe Makes Mighty Clout." The pitcher who gave up the Babe's first home run was Chuck McKinley. In his first game as a professional, in his second time at bat. Ruth had hit his first home run. If the sportswriters were impressed, so were the people of Fayetteville. Before Ruth's homer, the record for the longest hit had been held by the legen¬ dary Jim Thorpe, who had also played THE STATE. MAY 1985 Babe Ruth In North Carolina That spring in Fayetteville the rookie uatched trains, rode elevators, and hit his first homer. By TOM F. SKIPPER During a March 2, 1914 blizzard, the then-minor league Baltimore Orioles baseball team boarded a train which took them south to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and a month of spring train¬ ing. Among manager Jack Dunn’s new recruits was a hefty 19-year-old named George Herman Ruth. Only the month before. Ruth had been playing ball at St. Mary’s Indus¬ trial School in Baltimore, a home for problem youths and children from bro¬ ken homes. Now. earning the enormous sum of S100 a week, Ruth was about to embark on a career which would make him the most famous man ever to play the game of baseball. The Fayetteville Observer of March 11. 1914. records the Orioles arrival. Under the headline "The Birds Have Migrated." the paper noted that "The boys are well quartered in Hotel LaFayette. They are fine looking sturdy young fellows and seem fit and ready for the fray." For the first couple of days, the players merely loosened up, throwing and catching and taking batting prac¬ tice. They worked out at the old Cape- Fear Fair Grounds, about a mile from the downtown hotel. Later in the week it began to rain, so for a few days the team practiced in the old armory, the biggest building in town. With the wet weather, the team had some time on their hands. During the week, the Fayetteville high school basketball team challenged the Orioles to a game of basketball. The Orioles, with Ruth in the line-up. beat the local favorites 8-6. The Hotel LaFayette was a showpiece ol Fayetteville In 1914 when Ruth and the team stayed there. Now It has obviously lallen into disrepair. (Tom Skipper photo) 16