Free The Selling of the Babe by Glenn Stout Page B

time, sporting goods manufacturer A. J. Reach was the leading manufacturer of recreational baseballs and supplied the balls to both major leagues (although the NL balls were stamped with the name of the Spalding Company). Almost overnight, the quality of materials available to the company dropped dramatically, and they produced baseballs made from lower quality leather and wool, which as any knitter can tell you, can vary widely in strength and resilience.
    The impact was unnoticeable at first, as both the company and most major league clubs retained a healthy supply of the old balls, but as the 1918 season progressed, the consumers began to notice that the balls, now wound with inferior yarn and covered with lower quality horsehide, were even deader than before and wore out much faster. Reach responded by changing the setting of the machines they used to wind the yarn, winding it tighter. It helped some, but it took more than a full season before the old supply of subpar baseballs was used up. As a result, in 1918 teams began the season using the normal dead ball, but as the season progressed inferior balls that were even deader came into play. And over the course of the 1918 season, from beginning to end, there was a slow drop in power for both Babe Ruth and the Red Sox. The impact of that would extend in the 1919 season as well, in reverse fashion. Over the course of the year, as materials improved and the Reach company neglected to change back the setting on their winding machines, the ball became ever more lively and would help lead to an increase in power and offense to levels never before seen.
    Of course, in early May of 1918 neither the Red Sox, Harry Frazee, Jacob Ruppert, Babe Ruth, nor anyone else in baseball knew anything about that. But they would soon learn that Ruth just might be a singular talent.
    During the Saturday loss to the Yankees, Dick Hoblitzell reportedly injured either his hand or a finger, or aggravated a previous injury. At any rate, the next day, Sunday, as the Red Sox played an exhibition in Clifton, New Jersey, due to the blue laws still in effect in New York, Hoblitzell got a rest and Barrow let everyone play just about anywhere they wanted. Little used pitcher Weldon Wyckoff played the outfield and veteran shortstop Heinie Wagner, nominally an active player but as much a coach as anything else, started the game at first base. Halfway through, Ruth took over for Wagner at first, flying out and whiffing against a semipro pitcher.
    When Hoblitzell showed up at the ballpark the next day, May 6, he was still unable to play. That solved one problem for Barrow, because thus far in the 1918 season, whether it was because he was hurt or distracted by his impending call-up to the military, Hobby was hitting .080, with only four singles in 50 at bats.
    But replacing him still left Barrow in something of a quandary. Stuffy McInnis was one of the best first basemen in the league, but Barrow had decided to play him at third and wasn’t eager to make a change. Besides, who then would play third? The logical choice was second baseman Dave Shean, but that would leave a gap there. And Heinie Wagner, who had once played a little third base, had a bad arm and could no longer throw.
    So with little fanfare, Barrow, after likely talking things over with Harry Hooper and Wagner, made the next most logical decision. Ruth had played first during the spring, and had filled in one day before in the exhibition, so he might as well step in at first base now. Besides, another bat in the lineup, particularly Ruth’s, especially in the Polo Grounds, was useful. So on May 6, 1918, three years to the day after he’d cracked the first home run of his career, also in the Polo Grounds, Ruth stepped onto a major league diamond for the first time as something other than a pitcher or a pinch hitter, which he had done for the Red Sox only a handful of times.
    It was intended to be a temporary measure, a stopgap until