60 Years Later, It Remains a Symbol of Greatness : 60 : Not Many Have Challenged Babe Ruth’s ’27 Homer Total

Sixty years ago today, in the eighth inning of a New York Yankees-Washington Senators game at Yankee Stadium, Babe Ruth, on a 1-and-1 count, drove a low, inside fastball toward the right-field foul pole.

Washington pitcher Tom Zachary, catcher Muddy Ruel and plate umpire Bill Dinneen watched the ball, which was hooking rapidly toward foul territory. Ruth began his home run trot to first. Zachary shouted: “Foul ball! Foul ball!”

The ball landed halfway up the lower bleachers, fair by a foot. While Zachary argued with Dinneen, there was a wild scramble among the bleacher fans for the ball--it was retrieved by Joe Forner, 40, of 1937 First Ave., New York--and a roar went up from about 10,000 in attendance, all of whom were present for only one reason, to see Ruth make baseball history.

That home run, on Sept. 30, 1927, was his 60th of the season, a single-season record that survived until Roger Maris broke it in a 162-game season in 1961.

Afterward, the exuberant Ruth and his Yankee teammates celebrated his latest record--he had set the old mark of 59 in 1921--in the locker room.

Shouted Ruth: “Sixty! Count ‘em, 60! Let’s see some other son of a bitch match that!”

No one did, for 34 years. Only a few, in fact, have even approached that magic number, 60.

Even today, in a season when three players--George Bell, Andre Dawson and Mark McGwire--are flirting with 50-homer seasons, the fact remains that in the history of the sport, only 10 players have hit 50 in one season, and no one has done it since 1977.

For Ruth, it was the perfect season for 60, because his was a team for all seasons. They called the ’27 Yankee lineup “Murderer’s Row.” Only the Mantle-Maris Yankees of 1961 are spoken of in the same breath with the ’27 Ruth-Gehrig Yankees.

The Philadelphia Athletics won 91 games that year--and finished 19 games behind the Yankees. The 1927 Yankees were a collection of very good players, many of whom had their best seasons, and they won 110 games. As a team, the Yankees hit .307.

Ruth, who was 32 that year, also drove in 164 runs and hit .356. Gehrig, 24, hit 47 home runs, drove in 175 runs, then a major league record, batted .373 and was voted the league’s top player.

Earle Combs, 28, hit .356 and, batting in the leadoff spot, scored 137 times. He also led the league with 231 hits, 166 of them singles. Bob Meusel, 31, hit .337 and drove in 103 runs. Second-year infielder Tony Lazzeri, 23, batted .309, hit 18 home runs and drove in 102 runs.

The pitching staff’s ace was Waite Hoyt, 28, who had a 22-7 year and a league-leading 2.63 earned-run average. Herb Pennock, 33, was 19-8, with a 3.00 ERA. Urban Shocker, 37, was 18-6. The bullpen ace was a rookie, Wilcy Moore, 30. He was 13-3 as a reliever and had an 2.28 ERA.

According to Ruth biographer Robert Creamer in his 1974 book, “Babe: The Legend Comes to Life,” Moore was something of a comedy ace, too. Known as one of the worst hitters in baseball--he hit .080 in 1927--Moore was teased unmercifully by Ruth. In spring training, Ruth bet Moore $300 he wouldn’t get three hits all season.

Moore went 6 for 75, though, and Ruth paid up. Later, according to Creamer, Moore told Ruth he used the money to buy two mules for his Oklahoma farm and named one Babe, the other Ruth.

Ruth and Gehrig, like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris 34 years later, waged a homer-for-homer battle until mid-August, when Gehrig ran out of steam and Ruth picked up the pace. Ruth hit 32 home runs on the road that year, still the major league record.

Gehrig hit only 9 after Aug. 5, and Ruth hit 25. In September, Ruth registered the best single month of his 22-year career. He hit 17 home runs, a one-month total matched by only two other major leaguers, Rudy York, who once hit 18, and Willie Mays, who had 17.

In September, Ruth’s towering home runs came in majestic bunches. On Sept. 6, in Boston, he hit three. Then he hit two more in Fenway Park the next day, bringing him to 49. He hit two on Sept. 13 in Yankee Stadium, bringing him to 52.

He was stuck on 56 with five games left, and it looked as if his 1921 record, 59, would stand. But a great finish was in the cards--four homers in four days.

He hit No. 57, a grand slam, against Philadelphia Sept. 27. He got Nos. 58 and 59 Sept. 29 against Washington, then came No. 60 the next day.

He had multiple home run games 10 times in 1927. He hit two or more homers in one game 72 times in his career, still the major league record.

Home run No. 56 was a broken-bat hit and it had a twist. A youngster, seated behind first base, got so excited that he ran out of the stands as Ruth reached first base. The boy cut across the infield and greeted him at third.

Ruth had carried the handle of the bat around the bases with him. At third, the youngster joyfully greeted him, pounding his back with both hands. Then, according to the New York Times story the following day, the boy grabbed the bat handle but Ruth wouldn’t let go. He dragged the youngster over home plate and into the Yankee dugout.

On Sept. 29, when Ruth hit Nos. 58 and 59, he nearly hit four, not two. He hit his 58th in the first inning, then in the second he hit a 420-foot triple, the ball hitting halfway up the outfield fence. He hit No. 59 in the fifth, a tape-measure blast that landed halfway up the upper deck.

In the seventh, in his final at-bat, Ruth missed hitting another home run by a foot. The Washington right fielder had his back to the wall when he caught the fly ball.

In September, 1927, it was headlines when Ruth did not hit a home run. “Ruth Is Homerless” and “Ruth Is Without Homer” were two sub-headlines in New York Times sports sections that month.

After running away with the pennant with 110 wins--an American League record that wasn’t topped until the 1954 Cleveland Indians won 111--the Yankees thrashed the Pittsburgh Pirates in a four-game World Series.

Some sportswriters reported that the Yankees won the Series before the first game at Forbes Field. The Pirates, they wrote, stared open-mouthed at Ruth and Gehrig, who hit ball after ball out of spacious Forbes Field during batting practice, and were completely intimidated by the Yankees.

In the World Series, Ruth hit .400, drove in seven runs and hit two more home runs.

Quite a year, 1927, for Ruth and the Yankees, although Ruth himself long maintained that 1927 was no better than his third-best, and many baseball historians agree.

In 1920 and ‘21, when Ruth was 25 and 26, respectively, he put together what might be the two best consecutive seasons by a hitter.

He hit 54 homers in 1920, a remarkable feat for that day and age. Moreover, he played in only 142 games that year, his first with the Yankees. The second-highest home run total that year was 19, by George Sisler. Only one other team in the American League hit more than 44 home runs that year. He also averaged .376 and drove in 137 runs.

And 1921 was even better. In 152 games, he hit 59 homers, drove in 171 runs and batted .378. He had 204 hits and walked 144 times. With 540 plate appearances, Ruth had a 64% chance of reaching base every time he went to the plate.

In 1927, New York Times columnist John Kieran was impressed by Ruth’s breaking his home run record at age 32, when his best years were supposed to have been behind him.

“Supposedly over the hill, slipping down the steps of time, stumbling toward the discard, six years past his peak, Babe Ruth stepped out and hung up a new home run record at which all the sport world may stand and wonder,” he wrote.

“What Big Bill Tilden couldn’t do on the tennis court, Babe Ruth has done on the diamond. What Dempsey couldn’t do with his fists (the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney “Long Count” fight had occurred eight days before Ruth hit his 60th homer), Ruth has done with his fists. He came back.

“Put it in letters of gold. It will be a long time before anyone else betters that home run mark, and a still longer time before any aging athlete makes such a gallant and glorious charge over the comeback trail.”

Zachary, the unlucky Washington pitcher on Sept. 30, 1927, irritated Ruth for years afterward by complaining that the 60th home run had really been a foul ball.

Then one day in 1947, old teammates and rivals assembled in Yankee Stadium to honor Ruth, who was dying of throat cancer. When he shook Zachary’s hand, the stooped, frail Ruth said in a hoarse voice: “You crooked son of a bitch, are you still claiming that ball was foul?”

THE TOP HOME RUN HITTERS IN A SEASON

Player Team YR G HR Roger Maris N.Y. Yankees 1961 161 61 Babe Ruth N.Y. Yankees 1927 151 60 Babe Ruth N.Y. Yankees 1921 152 59 Jimmy Foxx Phil. A’s 1932 154 58 H. Greenberg Detroit 1938 155 58 Hack Wilson Chicago Cubs 1930 155 56 Babe Ruth N.Y. Yankees 1920 142 54 Babe Ruth N.Y. Yankees 1928 154 54 Ralph Kiner Pittsburgh 1949 152 54 Mickey Mantle N.Y. Yankees 1961 153 54 Mickey Mantle N.Y. Yankees 1956 150 52 Willie Mays S. Francisco 1965 157 52 George Foster Cincinnati 1977 158 52 Ralph Kiner Pittsburgh 1947 152 51 Johnny Mize N.Y. Giants 1947 154 51 Willie Mays N.Y. Giants 1955 152 51 Jimmy Foxx Boston 1938 149 50