Babe Ruth Barnstorms Through the Northwest in 1924, Part 1: Spokane

The Swatting Bambino was famous for hitting home runs and offseason barnstorming tours. 100 years ago today he hit the Northwest for the first time, beginning in Spokane.

Welcome to a four-part series on Babe Ruth’s barnstorming tour through the Northwest in 1924! Instead of trying to cram this into one newsletter, I thought it would be fun to stretch it out and enjoy the 100th anniversary of each of his stops in Spokane, Tacoma, Seattle, and Portland.

My goal is to get this out each day on their respective anniversaries, but it’s possible I’ll get behind on them because I’m coincidentally headed out of town to Spokane this weekend. But rest assured, they will all get out eventually!

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If you’re reading this newsletter I don’t have to tell you that in the 1920s Babe Ruth was kind of a big deal.

In fact, he was the biggest deal. The first coast-to-coast real live American sports superstar. He pulled baseball out of the deadball era into a lively and fun era, forever changing the game. Of all the enduring symbols of the Roaring 20s, he may loom the largest of all.

For most of the United States, they could only read about his exploits in the newspapers or see clips of him in action on newsreels. National radio and television broadcasts were years away and there were only 8 cities that played host to American League baseball. Luckily, the Babe was happy to take his home run slugging show on the road and 100 years ago, he came to the Northwest for the first time.

The 1924 baseball season was a bit of bummer for Ruth’s New York Yankees. The team won the American League pennant for the first time in 1921. Going into the 1924 season, the Yankees had played in 3 straight World Series against the New York Giants, and won it all in 1923. So it was disappointing to finish second in the American League to the Washington Nationals.

In 1924, Babe Ruth was already the all-time home run leader, and added 46 more to his career totals. The next highest total that season was 27, accomplished by Jack Fournier of the Brooklyn Robbins and Joe Hauser of the Philadelphia Athletics. Of note to us in the sabermetric era, he also led the major leagues in walks with 142. The next highest walk total was 102, by Topper Rigney of the Detroit Tigers. He also won his only batting title that year, hitting .378. It wasn’t good enough to lead the major leagues though; Rogers Hornsby hit .424 that year.

Since he wasn’t playing in the World Series, Babe Ruth began a “job” as a syndicated columnist, “writing” his thoughts about each game for newspapers across the country. (His columns were almost certainly ghost written by his agent, Christy Walsh). After the Nationals nabbed the World Series title 4 games to 3 over the New York Giants, the Babe headed out on a barnstorming tour to make the most of his offseason.

He brought Walsh and Bob Meusel, his Yankee teammate, along with him as he headed toward the west coast.

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Spokane Chronicle, October 17, 1925, 1. From left to right: Christy Walsh, Bob Meusel, Babe Ruth, Frank Davies, and Jack Reinhardt. Davies and Reinhardt were members of the Spokane American Legion, and were in charge of Ruth’s visit.

The Spokane Chronicle announced on October 3rd that plans had been finalized for Babe Ruth to come to Spokane. The visit on October 17th was arranged by the Spokane post of the American Legion, and the Spokane City League got right to work putting together two baseball teams worth of their finest players. Ruth would star on one team, and Meusel the other. This was the pattern on each stop on their tour; they’d each take their place among local players and face off.

The game, the newspaper said, would “be held regardless of weather conditions” and tickets could be had for $1 each.¹ Placards went up all over the city advertising the exhibition game. Knowing it would be a big draw, a group lobbied the school board to institute a half holiday for the 17th, which was a Friday. The argument was that “Ruth is the idol of every American boy who plays baseball and the sight of the Babe in action would be a memory carried by a boy for years.”²

Spokane Chronicle, October 15, 1924, 16.

Babe Ruth and his entourage arrived in Spokane by train the evening of October 16th. Upon disembarking, he spoke to newspaper reporters. He was described by the Spokane Chronicle as “Modest and retiring, yet with that just pride of the master in his respective line…It is only when he speaks that the underlying dynamic personality that has give the sport world its most colorful figure is brought out.”³

Before the game on October 17th, Ruth made a visit to a home for orphans in Spokane called the Hutton Home. This was a customary practice of his in nearly every city he visited. Because of his own tumultuous childhood and time in a home for boys, he made sure to visit children and tried to bring them joy.

One of the only photos I was able to find online of Ruth’s time in Spokane. He is signing autographs for the children at the Hutton Home in the Spokane Valley. https://greaterspokane.org/uncategorized/spokanes-history-in-digital-form/

At 2:30 that afternoon, Ruth and Meusel put on a batting demonstration for the Spokane crowd, wowing them by knocking home runs over the fence of Natatorium Park. The atmosphere at the park was one of extreme excitement and glee. The Spokesman-Review set the scene as 1,700 fans filled the park:

All around the high baseball park fence kids of the ragged variety clung with fingernails and toenails and watched for cops. In the stands bank presidents, lawyers, hodcarriers and other kids ate peanuts and cheered hoarsely. Babe Ruth and Bob Meusel were in town yesterday, and circus day, Christmas and Thanksgiving paled into insignificance.⁴

A lieutenant from Fort Wright picked one team from eligible City League players and Edward McGoldrick, the owner of McGoldrick Lumber company in Spokane, picked the other. McGoldrick was lucky to nab Ruth for his team, and Meusel rounded out the Fort Wright team.

Babe Ruth and Bob Meusel, number 7 hitters, both of them.

For the first three innings the game proceeded as though it was a normal game. But the Spokane crowd could see normie Spokane baseball players any day. What they really wanted was to see more of the major league Yankees from the east. After the third inning, the rules of the game were altered a bit to allow for more fun.

Ruth and Meusel each came up to bat once per inning. They each hit a number of clear singles or doubles and “the crowd insisted they were fouls and Umpire Lavendol agreed.”⁵ Despite the rule changes, through the first five innings the Spokane pitchers kept the visitors from knocking the ball over the fence, precisely the thing that Spokane fans had come to the ballpark to see.

Then, in the sixth inning, Meusel struck a ball cleanly over the left field fence. It was the first home run by a major league in Spokane, but it wasn’t Meusel’s first run around the bases. He had played for the 1917 Spokane Indians in that very park.

Throughout the game, Ruth was surrounded by adoring fans. Except when he was at bat,

…pools of kids…streamed from stands and fences. “Sign my baseball!” or “Sign this paper!” they would shout and the champion batsman of the American League plied his pen. Policemen and legion officials tried in vain to chase them away.⁶

In the eighth inning, Ruth sent a long fly ball to centerfield where it was snagged by his teammate Meusel mere feet from the fence. Worried that they may not see a Ruth home run at all, he was allowed back to bat.

This was the moment the crowd had been waiting for. “Swinging with his easy grace, so surprising in a man of his elephantine proportions,”⁷ Babe Ruth smacked a long home run over the centerfield sign and into the pine trees beyond the ballpark fence.

The crowd erupted:

A fat man spilled his bag of peanuts and waved his hat. A woman who graces social affairs stood and shouted at the top of her voice. A boy in an expensive fur-trimmed overcoat grinned. A kid with a torn sweater and a dust-smudged face danced and grinned. All kids grinned. There was the light of heaven in their faces. They had seen Babe Ruth hit a homer.⁸

The Babe Ruth home run ended the game because the gleeful crowd spilled onto the field, whooping and hollering and dancing with joy.

Those keeping track said the Babe’s team, the McGoldrick team, won 7 to 1. But nobody cared about the score.

They got to witness a Babe Ruth home run.

Natatorium Park

Photo courtesy of the Spokane Public Library (4339)

The ballpark where the game took place was a real gem. It was nestled in a bend on the Spokane River, west of the current day Kendall Yards neighborhood, and looks like an amazing place to watch a baseball game.

As the name may suggest, Natatorium Park wasn’t just a baseball park. The site began as a park with a picnic area near the river named Ingersoll Park. After a cable car was built across the first Monroe Street Bridge, the ballpark was built in 1889 to give cable car riders a destination. Soon, a casino and bar were added to the property and the name was changed to Twickenham Park in 1890.

In 1893, the park was purchased by the Spokane Street Railway and Washington Water Power Company and they turned into an amusement park. A couple swimming pools were added, including the first heated pool in the state, and it became Natatorium Park. Over the years, more amusement rides and attractions were added.

The baseball field was converted to a midget race track in 1939, and that was the end of baseball there. The park continued to evolve, but eventually began to shut down and it shuttered for good in 1968. Today, it is the site of a mobile home park.

The Spokane Game Legacy

If they follow the pattern of past years, today a group of friends will gather on the banks of the Spokane River, near the site a Natatorium Park. They began the tradition in 2008, and every year since on October 17 they celebrate the anniversary of Babe Ruth’s only home run in Spokane.

They bring a tee, a bunch of balls on which they write “Babe Ruth Day”. There’s a bottle of whiskey and red solo cup shot glasses. They toast the Babe and try to channel the spirt of the Bambino and slug baseballs over the river.

KREM 2 aired a story about them last year:

Babe Ruth also signed a lot of baseballs on his tours. One such ball that was signed in Spokane was put up for auction last year. It sold for $35,000 after being in a safe deposit box for more than 50 years.

Next Up!

After the game in Spokane, after he could remove himself from the fans who wanted to meet him and have him sign their balls and game programs, Babe Ruth & Co. hopped aboard a Northern Pacific train bound for Tacoma:

1. “Babe Ruth Here on October 17,” Spokane Chronicle, October 3, 1924, 25.

2. “Want Students to See “Bambino”,” The Spokesman-Review, October 14, 1824, 6.

3. “Hit Ball hard or Strike Out, Is Babe Ruth’s Style,” Spokane Chronicle, October 17, 1924, 3.

4. “1700 Spokane Fans Cheer Wildly As Meusel and Ruth Knock Homers,” The Spokesman-Review, October 18, 1924, 16.

5. “1700 Spokane Fans Cheer Wildly As Meusel and Ruth Knock Homers,” The Spokesman-Review, October 18, 1924, 16.

6. “1700 Spokane Fans Cheer Wildly As Meusel and Ruth Knock Homers,” The Spokesman-Review, October 18, 1924, 16.

7. “1700 Spokane Fans Cheer Wildly As Meusel and Ruth Knock Homers,” The Spokesman-Review, October 18, 1924, 16.

8. “1700 Spokane Fans Cheer Wildly As Meusel and Ruth Knock Homers,” The Spokesman-Review, October 18, 1924, 16.