Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Babe Ruth

The Dean’s Cards player of this week is Babe Ruth.  The occasion is that we have just listed so many great Babe Ruth cards and I wanted to talk about them before they sold.  The reprint cards of the Babe are also very popular.

The Babe loved to play golf and had a five handicap.  The story goes that he could hit the ball 300 yards with the old fashioned wood drivers and had a terrible short game.181_George_Herman_Babe_Ruth5

My favorite Babe Ruth Story was told by Billy Werber, who died this year at 100 years of age.  Werber tells the story of regularly playing bridge with Bill Dickey against Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on a train rides between cites as a rookie.  The Babe would light a cigar and get a big glass of ice filled to the top with Canadian Whiskey.

According to Werber, he and Dickey were much smarter than Ruth and Gehrig (which is very believable) and beat them regularly – often winning $3 or $4 a night.  Ruth would regularly "false bid" his hands (often to get a rise out of Gehrig) and Gehrig would become mad and throw down the cards.  Werber also added that he liked Ruth a lot and did not care very much for Gehrig.

Please add any good Babe Ruth Stories that you may have.  I would love to hear them.

Also please check out the obscure reprint cards that we have of the Babe.  I rarely see these cards as originals.

No comments:

Post a Comment