Strange Times Special 10: Reads Babe Ruth's Mind

Our march through 1921 pauses this week, as we take a moment to celebrate the impending climax of the Deadball Kickstarter campaign with a pair of stories featuring the great Babe Ruth.

One thing I love about writing this newsletter is seeing how the people we remember from the 1920s were extremely famous in their day as well. The newspapers wrote about Ruth—and Charlie Chaplin and Isadora Duncan and Thomas Edison—every chance they got, and as a result we have extremely silly items like the two below.

If you’re even remotely interested in baseball history, I strongly recommend checking out the Kickstarter campaign. Designed for one or two players—I play mostly single player, myself—Deadball simulates a game of baseball in about 30 minutes. It’s the fastest, most intelligent, most lovingly-created baseball game out there. It really does bring the history of the sport to life.

Babe Ruth would hit sixty home runs, of course, but it only came in 1927. In ‘21 (spoiler!) he fell one short.

“Babe” Ruth declared last night that he would try to break his own record and bat out sixty home runs this season. He tried hard to conceal the thought from Dunninger, the man who read Mayor Hylan’s mind a few days ago, at the benefit last night in the Hippodrome by the women’s auxiliary of the Dan Tallon Post No. 679, American Legion, but Dunninger would not let him.

With Sheriff David Knott and Police Commissioner Richard E. Enright, the “Babe” went up on the stage to help Dunninger in his stunts. Dunninger made no attempt to reach Enright’s mind or Knott’s. But he asked Ruth to write a question and answer on a piece of paper and told him the answer was “Sixty.” Ruth shook his head in bewilderment, but said Dunninger was right.

Ruth was in Shreveport for spring training, I suspect, and R.L. Stringfellow was determined to wring as much publicity out of it as he could.

SHREVEPORT, March 11.—An automobile has been placed at the disposal of Babe Ruth during his stay in Shreveport and by a special dispensation he will be able to drive without taking out the usual license. According to an announcement made today by R.L. Stringfellow, commissioner of Public Safety, Babe has only to display a plate bearing his name. The announcement reads:

“Permission is granted to his Majesty, Babe Ruth, the King of Swat, to operate an automobile without displaying a State license in the City of Shreveport.”