April 9, 1925: Babe Ruth's "Bellyache Heard 'Round the World"

Ruth being loaded into the ambulance at Penn Station.

Every paper in the country had this photo then, but it's rare now.

April 9, 1925: Babe Ruth, the biggest star in baseball, is rushed to the hospital. It becomes known as "The Bellyache Heard 'Round the World."

History remembers the great New York Yankees slugger as a big jolly fat man who loved children and delivered for his fans, baseball's answer to Santa Claus -- or, as his contemporary, sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, put it, "Santa Claus drinking his whiskey straight, and complaining of a bellyache." But for much of his career, his 6-foot-2 frame carried a strapping 215 pounds, hardly fat at all.

But his massive appetites, including for food and drink, got him in trouble. He was overweight for much of the 1922 season, and used farmwork at his home in Sudbury, Massachusetts, 23 miles west of downtown Boston, to get in shape for the 1923 season. He remained in good shape for 1923 and 1924.

But the 1924-25 off-season saw him out of control. By the time he got to Hot Springs, Arkansas -- where Spring Training had been invented in 1885 by Cap Anson of the team now known as the Chicago Cubs, to "boil the beer out" of his players, Ruth was 256 pounds. On this annual "Babe Boil," he lost 30 pounds.

But Hot Springs had become a resort town, with all kinds of illegal establishments, from bars (it was the middle of Prohibition) to casinos to houses of otherwise ill repute -- to satisfy yet another of the Babe's irresistible-force appetites, while his wife, Helen, and their daughter, Dorothy, were left behind in Sudbury.

He suffered abdominal pains and a fever in Hot Springs, before joining the Yankees in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Yankees had previously trained in New Orleans, but, already known as America's biggest party city, it offered too many temptations for the Great Bambino. So they moved to St. Pete, where they stayed until 1961.

(They moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1962, and the Mets took up the Yankees' former complex at Miller Huggins Field, renaming it Huggins-Stengel Field. The Mets moved to Port St. Lucie in 1988, and the Yankees moved to Tampa in 1996. Huggins-Stengel Field is still in use for amateur baseball.)

While in St. Pete, Ruth fell ill again. On April 7, as the team's train headed north, it stopped in Asheville, North Carolina, where the Yankees were to play an exhibition game. Ruth collapsed on the platform, and was hospitalized. The team played the game without him.

Trying to get back to New York, he missed a train connection, making him unable to meet the team in Washington. This story got around the world, and, like a "game of telephone," it got wilder until a newspaper in London printed that the Sultan of Swat was dead at the age of 31. (He was actually 30. How he didn't know his own birthdate is a story for another time.) He sent a telegram to Helen, telling her to meet him in New York, so she would know he was alive. This, and his groans of pain, were the kind of roars that the Roaring Twenties did not need.

As his train got through New Jersey on its way to Pennsylvania Station on April 9, Ruth, having just had a typically huge breakfast, lost consciousness in the train's rest room. He was taken to his sleeping compartment, and, upon arrival, its window had to be removed to get him out on a stretcher. He went into convulsions in the ambulance, and it took 6 attendants to hold him down. He was given a sedative, and taken to St. Vincent's Hospital at 14th Street and 7th Avenue in Greenwich Village.

What did Ruth have? Sportswriter W.O. McGeehan wrote that Ruth's illness was due to binging on hot dogs and soda pop before a game -- a "safe for public consumption" story. Because of this, it became known as "The Bellyache Heard 'Round the World." A report from his doctor, issued through the Yankees' front office, said that Ruth had a "fistula" -- essentially, a gastric ulcer. Also, a safe story.

Decades later, a distant cousin on his father's side said that Crohn's disease, an inflammation of the colon (the large intestine), runs in the Ruth family. This would explain the symptoms, but Crohn's tends to be a chronic issue, and this was the only time in Ruth's life that he suffered such symptoms.

Given Ruth's carousing, there has been a rumor ever since that he was suffering from some sort of sexually-transmitted disease. Supposedly, this was confirmed by Yankee general manager Ed Barrow. But Ruth underwent surgery on April 17, and surgery has never been a typical treatment for either syphilis or gonorrhea, the 2 main venereal diseases.

In 1959, in her memoir, Claire Ruth, the Babe's 2nd wife, wrote that it was something that couldn't be mentioned in polite company at the time, but not V.D.: It was a torn groin muscle. But that wouldn't have explained the fever or the faintings.

In his 1938 memoir Farewell to Sport, sportswriter Paul Gallico wrote, "A baseball player lay close to death and an entire nation held its breath, worried and fretted, and bought every edition of the newspapers to read the bulletins as though the life of a personal friend or a member of the family were at stake." (And, remember, this was before his epic 1927 season, or his 1932 "called shot.") There was no 24-hour TV news or social media to spread the stories, true or otherwise. Even radio broadcasting was still in its infancy.

On April 24, with the Babe still hospitalized, Helen collapsed on the grounds of St. Vincent's, having "a complete nervous breakdown." She couldn't take all the talk about his illness, and the various things that could have caused it.

They separated not long thereafter. He wasn't too Catholic to cheat on her, but he was too Catholic to ever divorce her. She eventually left him for another man, and died in a house fire in 1929. Ruth seemed genuinely sad at her funeral. However, just three months later, he married Claire, who had basically been the real Mrs. Ruth since 1923.

Ruth didn't make his season debut until June 1, and had his worst season as a Yankee. Several other Yankees weren't hitting, either. Indeed, between June 1, 1925 -- also the day Lou Gehrig's playing streak began -- and April 13, 1926, the next season's Opening Day, the starters were replaced at 1st base, 2nd base, shortstop, center field and catcher. Respectively: Wally Pipp was replaced by Gehrig, Aaron Ward was replaced by Tony Lazzeri, Everett Scott was replaced by Mark Koenig, Whitey Witt was replaced by Earle Combs; and Wally Schang was replaced by a platoon of Mike Gazella, Pat Collins and Benny Bengough. (It is odd that the 1927 Yankees, often considered the greatest team of all time, were weak at the most important position, catcher.)

What's more, Ruth talked to the one athlete in the 1920s who could match him for press attention, the Heavyweight Champion of the World, Jack Dempsey. Dempsey lent Ruth one of his trainers, Artie McGovern. This made Ruth perhaps the 1st person in America, other than prizefighters like Dempsey and actors, to have what would now be called a personal trainer. He whipped Ruth back into shape.

The results speak for themselves: Year, Ruth's age, batting average, home runs, RBIs, OPS+, Yankees' finish:

1926, 31: .372, 47, 153, 226, 91-63, Won Pennant, but lost World Series
1927, 32: .356, 60, 165, 225, 110-44, Won World Series
1928, 33: .323, 54, 146, 206, 101-53, Won World Series
1929, 34: .345, 46, 154, 193, 88-66, 2nd place
1930, 35: .359, 49, 153, 211, 86-68, 3rd place
1931, 36: .373, 46, 162, 218, 94-59, 2nd place

1932, 37: .341, 41, 137, 201, 107-47, Won World Series

No steroids necessary.

*

April 9, 1925 was a Thursday. Baseball, as stated, was still in Spring Training. Football was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. The hockey season ended 10 days earlier, when the Victoria Cougars beat the Montreal Canadiens for the Stanley Cup. So there were no scores on this historic day.

April 2, 1972: The Death of Gil Hodges

April 2, 1972: Gil Hodges dies of a heart attack in West Palm Beach, Florida, while playing golf with his New York Mets coaches. He was 2 days short of turning 48.

Gilbert Ray Hodge was born on April 4, 1924 in Princeton, Indiana, and grew up in nearby Petersburg. By the 1930 Census, the family name had been changed to "Hodges." He played baseball and basketball at St. Joseph's College in Collegeville, Indiana, but dropped out to sign with the Brooklyn Dodgers on September 6, 1943.

He played in 1 game, the regular season finale on October 3, then enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. So often described as "quiet," he nonetheless served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the battles of Tinian and Okinawa, and was awarded the Bronze Star.

After playing the 1946 season in the minor leagues, he was moved from catcher to 1st base, and was part of the Dodger team that became known as "The Boys of Summer," winning National League Pennants in 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955 and 1956, and just missing in 1950 and 1951. He was an 8-time NL All-Star, and received the Gold Glove for NL 1st basemen the 1st 3 times it was awarded.

Infamously, he went 0-for-21 in the 1952 World Series. It got so bad that priests, knowing that Gil was a devout Catholic, asked their parishioners to pray for him. In the 1955 World Series, he batted .292 with a home run and 5 RBIs, and was key to the Dodgers finally beating the Yankees and winning a title.

After the 1957 season, the Dodgers were moved to Los Angeles. But Gil, having married a Brooklynite, Joan Lombardi, kept a house in Brooklyn. The Dodgers won another World Series in 1959, not that it mattered to Brooklyn. The following off-season, Gil and his Dodger teammate Duke Snider were contestants on the baseball-themed game show Home Run Derby.

In 1962, the expansion New York Mets made him their 1st baseman, but age and injuries had caught up with him. On May 23, 1963, the Mets traded him to the Washington Senators, who immediately made him their manager. He then retired as a player. His 370 career home runs don’t sound like much now, but, at the time of his retirement, they ranked 10th all-time.

In 1968, he was named manager of the Mets. In 1969, he led them to win the World Series, making himself a New York sports hero all over again. The contrast between Gil's quiet leadership and the boisterousness of the opposing manager, Earl Weaver of the Baltimore Orioles, helped to underscore the difference in the teams' performances.

He guided the Mets to 3rd-place finishes in 1970 and 1971. But he had already suffered a heart attack in Washington, and he may have known another one was likely. It happened at the end of Spring Training in 1972. He was the first of the Brooklyn "Boys of Summer" to die. (The last survivor of the players that Roger Kahn identified as such in the book with that title was another Indiana native, pitcher Carl Erskine.) He remains the last manager or head coach of a New York Tri-State Area team to die in office.

The Mets retired Gil’s Number 14 on June 9, 1973. On April 4, 1978, what would have been his 54th birthday, the Marine Parkway Bridge, which connected Marine Park, Brooklyn to Rockaway, Queens, was renamed the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge in his memory. Also in Brooklyn, P.S. 193 and a Little League field were named for him. Between Avenue L and Avenue N, Bedford Avenue, about 3 miles south of where that road bordered the right field wall of Ebbets Field, is named Gil Hodges Way.

For many years, Hodges was mentioned as one of the best players never elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Although his baseball career, between playing and managing, was one of the noblest in the sport's history, the Hall does not combine such accomplishments into a "Contributor" category, the way the Basketball Hall of Fame does. On December 5, 2021, 53 years after he was first eligible for election to the Hall, he was finally elected, by the Hall's Golden Days Committee.

UPDATE: The Dodgers subsequently retired Number 14 for him, on June 4, 2022, on a day when the Mets were the visiting team. It was appropriate for another reason: My grandmother, who was from Queens, was a Dodger fan who became a Met fan, and June 4 was her birthday. Alas, while she lived to see several commemorations and honors of her old team, this was not one of them.

Nor was his induction ceremony at Cooperstown, New York, on July 24. His daughter, Irene, 1 of 4 children that Gil and Joan had, delivered the acceptance speech. Joan, 96 years old, was too ill to make the trip, had to watch on television, and died a few weeks later. But she had lived long enough to see Gil elected and inducted.

*

April 2, 1972 was a Sunday. Baseball, as I said, was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 4 games in the NBA Playoffs:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Baltimore Bullets, 104-103 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena). Archie Clark scored 35 for the Bullets.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Boston Celtics, 112-110 at the Alexander Memorial Coliseum (now the McCamish Pavilion) in Atlanta. Pete Maravich scored 36 for the Hawks.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Chicago Bulls, 108-97 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Golden State Warriors, 106-99 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 3 Playoff games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New York Nets beat the Kentucky Colonels, 105-90 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky. Rick Barry scored 35 for the Nets.

* The Virginia Squires beat the Miami Floridians, 118-11 at Miami-Dade Junior College North (now named Miami Dade College) in Miami. A rookie named Julius Erving, already known as "Doctor J," scored 53 points.

* And the Indiana Pacers beat the Denver Rockets, 122-120 in overtime at the Denver Auditorium Arena.

And the Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, with these 4 games:

* The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 4-3 at the Boston Garden. Jim Harrison scored the winning goal, 2:58 into overtime.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Minnesota North Stars beat the St. Louis blues, 6-5 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Bill Goldsworthy scored the winning goal, 1:36 into overtime.

March 29, 1973: Orange Baseballs In Spring Training

March 29, 1973: The Cleveland Indians beat the Oakland Athletics, 11-5 in a Spring Training game in Mesa, Arizona. Orange baseballs were used, an idea of A's owner Charlie Finley. He thought they would be easier to see in night games.

They were not used in regular-season games, yet another Finley idea that quickly went down the drain.

The idea wasn't completely original. In 1938, thinking of how Detroit Tigers catcher and manager Mickey Cochrane saw his career end with a beaning the year before, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Larry MacPhail announced that on August 2, in the 1st game of a doubleheader against the St. Louis Cardinals at Ebbets Field, the teams would use yellow baseballs. The Dodgers swept the doubleheader: They won the opener, 6-2, using yellow balls; and the nightcap, 9-3, with the usual white balls.

After the season, the National League voted to permit use of the yellow baseball as long, as opposing managers agree to the use of the ball before such games. But it was only used a few times in 1939, and never again, not even in night games.

Finley tried a lot of things to raise attendance, especially when the A's were still in Kansas City: The "Pennant Porch," to raise home run totals, which only seemed to work for the opposition; sheep grazing on the field, to save on groundskeeping costs; and, in Oakland, world-class sprinter Herb Washington as a "designated runner," to steal bases, without ever coming to bat or playing a field position.

Most of them didn't work. Nothing worked, not even winning 5 straight Division titles from 1971 to 1975, and 3 straight World Series from 1972 to 1974.

*

March 29, 1973 was a Thursday. Dutch soccer star Marc Overmars was born.

Baseball, as I said, was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were no games in either the NBA or the ABA.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-4 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. And the Philadelphia Flyers beat the Atlanta Flames, 4-2 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

And there were 4 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The New York Raiders lost to the Houston Aeros, 5-3 at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston.

* The Philadelphia Blazers beat the Alberta Oilers, 2-1 at the Philadelphia Arena.

* The Ottawa Nationals beat the New England Whalers, 5-2 at the Ottawa Civic Centre (now the TD Place Arena).

* And the Quebec Nordiques beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 5-3 at the St. Paul Civic Center.

March 22, 1993: The Crash On Little Lake Nellie

Steve Olin

March 22, 1993: The Cleveland Indians are struck by tragedy, when a boating accident kills two of their pitchers, and badly injures a third.

Steve Olin, a 27-year-old native of Portland, Oregon, reached the Indians in the 1989 season. In 1991, he went 3-6 with 17 saves. In 1992, he went 8-5 with 29 saves. He looked like a star in the making, part of the Indians' plan to contend for a title by the time they moved out of Cleveland Municipal Stadium and into the new Jacobs Field for the 1994 season. (It was renamed Progressive Field in 2008.)

Tim Crews, 31, from Tampa, had reached the majors with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1987. He was a middle reliever, with a career record of 11-13, and 15 saves, peaking at 6 in 1991.

Bob Ojeda, 35, was from Visalia, California, and had helped the New York Mets win the 1986 World Series. An elbow injury the next season curtailed his career, and the Mets traded him to the Dodgers for the 1991 season. He went 12-9, but fell to 6-9 in 1992. After that season, both he and Crews were free agents, and both signed with the Indians.

Olin, Crews and Ojeda reported to Spring Training in Chain of Lakes Park in Winter Haven, Florida, after having trained in Tucson, Arizona since 1947. March 22 was an off-day, and the 3 pitchers decided to take a boat ride on Little Lake Nellie in nearby Clermont.

Crews piloted the boat. All 3 men had been drinking. Crews' blood alcohol level was found to be 0.14, or 0.04 over the legal limit. It was getting dark, and the boat struck a pier that jutted out into the lake. Olin was killed instantly. Crews died the next day.

Ojeda sustained lacerations to his head, and admitted he had been slouching at the time of impact, which probably saved his life. But his psychological issues were greater than his physical ones, and he didn't make his 1st appearance of the season until August 7.

In a pregame ceremony on Opening Day, April 5, 1993, at Municipal Stadium, Patti Olin and Lori Crews were presented with their husbands' jerseys. The Cleveland players took the field wearing patches with Olin's Number 31 and Crews' Number 52 on them. They lost the opener to the New York Yankees, and never really recovered from losing one-third of their pitching staff in one fell swoop. They went 76-86, finishing in 6th place in the American League Eastern Division.

Although Crews had chosen to sign with another team, the Dodgers also wore patches with a Number 52 on them. Later in the season, Dodger Hall-of-Famers Don Drysdale and Roy Campanella also died.

After the 1993 season, the Indians lost another pitcher: Cliff Young was killed in a car crash in his native Houston suburbs. He was only 29.

Cliff Young, from earlier in his career,

with the California Angels

Ojeda made 9 appearances for the Indians in 1993, and 2 more for the Yankees in 1994, before he finally accepted that his injuries were too much to overcome, and retired, with a career record of 115-98. He has since served as a pitching coach in the Mets' organization, and as an analyst for their network, Sportsnet New York.

The Indians won the American League Pennant in 1995, their 1st in 41 years. They lost the World Series to the Atlanta Braves. The won another Pennant in 1997, but lost the World Series in 7 games to the Florida Marlins, because their top reliever, Jose Mesa, turned out to be unreliable. Steve Olin would have been a few days past his 32nd birthday, and probably at his peak. But he was unavailable, for the worst of reasons. The Indians also won American League Central Division titles in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2001. They won the Division again in 2007. Olin would have been 42, and, theoretically, could still have contributed to the Indians' postseason effort.

In 2009, the Indians left Winter Haven, and began training in Arizona again, at Goodyear Ballpark in the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear. (It's named for the town, not the tire company.) In 2010, they began sharing it with Ohio's other Major League Baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds. In 2022, the Indians became the Cleveland Guardians.

*

March 22, 1993 was a Monday. As I said, baseball was in Spring Training. Football was in its off-season. There were 3 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Washington Bullets, 97-92 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Denver Nuggets beat their arch-rivals, the Utah Jazz, 107-93 at the McNichols Arena in Denver.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 96-91 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

And there were 4 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Ottawa Senators, 5-4 at the Ottawa Civic Centre. (It's now named the TD Place Arena.)

* The Buffalo Sabres beat the Montreal Canadiens, 8-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Hartford Whalers, 5-4 at the Boston Garden.

* And the St. Louis Blues beat the Vancouver Canucks, 3-1 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

March 11, 2020: The Sports World Is Shut Down

March 11, 2020: There were 4 NBA games played. The New York Knicks beat the Atlanta Hawks, 136-131 in overtime at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta. The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Detroit Pistons, 124-106 at the Wells Fargo Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia. The Charlotte Hornets beat the Miami Heat, 109-98 at the American Airlines Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami. And the Dallas Mavericks beat the Denver Nuggets, 113-97 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

There were 5 NHL games played. The New York Rangers lost to the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2 in overtime at the Pepsi Center (now the Ball Arena) in Denver. The Chicago Blackhawks beat the San Jose Sharks, 6-2 at the United Center in Chicago. The Winnipeg Jets beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-2 at Rogers Place in Edmonton. The Los Angeles Kings beat the Ottawa Senators, 3-2 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles. And the St. Louis Blues beat the Anaheim Ducks, 4-2 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Two Major League Soccer teams played games in the CONCACAF Champions League, both against teams from Mexico. New York City FC, yet again forced out of Yankee Stadium for reasons beyond their control -- at this point, a team that doesn't control its own venue looks really stupid -- played at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, home of their arch-rivals, who were happy to take the money of the richest team in MLS, and lost 1-0 to Tigres UANL of San Nicolás de los Garza. And Atlanta United lost 3-0 to Club América, at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.

And Major League Baseball was in Spring Training. The Yankees lost to the Miami Marlins, 3-1 at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida. The Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-3 at Clover Park (the new name of their Spring Training stadium since 1988) in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

The next day, March 12, 2020, was The Day Everything Stopped. The Coronavirus pandemic, known as COVID-19, had shut everything down. That day, I wrote this on Facebook: "Now, it has really gotten real. Disney has chosen safety over money, and is closing both Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida."

Disney chose safety over money. Donald Trump did not: He continued to call COVID a hoax, designed to hurt him in the election.

In the end, it didn't hurt him. His supporters came out to vote for him, anyway. The Democrats' get-out-the-vote effort, already in place before COVID, is what beat him: There were simply more of them than of the other side, and while COVID was one reason they came out, including in what turned out to be the key States, it was far from the only reason.

I had gotten my long-awaited 1st hip replacement on February 19, and was scheduled to start outpatient therapy when the shutdown came. On March 17, I wrote, "This is what my life has come to. I am still waiting for women to return my calls, but now, they are all doctors' receptionists."

And on April 5, I wrote, "I feel like I'm 14 again. The President is a 73-year-old greedy senile Republican the media covers for, current music mostly sucks, and the Yankees aren't winning the Pennant." Of course, at that point, we didn't know if the season would get started at all, and that anybody would win the Pennants. For the first time since the Strike of '94, we didn't know if baseball would get started again until the next season, or ever.

UPDATE: According to this source, over 1.1 million Americans died from COVID. We may never know how many would have lived had a vaccine been available sooner. It would take until June 2021 for the various vaccines to be available to all Americans. From then until this article, by Philip Bump, was published in The Washington Post on April 21, 2022, it had been estimated that 234,000 Americans had died from COVID after refusing to get vaccines.