After 85 years, the Called Shot still debated

Eighty-five years ago in October, Babe Ruth pointed to center field and called his shot.

Maybe.

It was, after all, decades before today when every fan has a cellphone and takes video of everything from cats to drying paint.

For The Called Shot, all we have are recollections and quotes. Neither are conclusive.

Recollections have it this way: Oct 1, 1932:  In the fifth inning of game three of the World Series, with a count of two balls and two strikes, Babe Ruth pointed to the center field bleachers in Chicago’s Wrigley Field and then smashed a home run high above the very spot to which he had just gestured. The Yankees went on to sweep the Series with four straight victories.

Now the pitcher, Charlie Root, took exception to the story and said if Ruth had the nerve to make such a gesture, Root would have made sure the Babe “ended up on his (behind).”

Nearly 10 years later on the set of a movie, Root and Ruth talked about the Called Shot. Ruth said he didn’t call it, but it made a great story. On the other hand, Ruth’s descendants are firmly in the Called Shot camp.

In 2013, Chicago sportswriter Ed Sherman interviewed Ruth’s 96-year-old adopted daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens, who said both her mother and Cardinal Spellman claimed to have seen the Called Shot. Even two 16-mm films, one discovered in the 1970s and another in 1999, don’t conclusively tell the story.

But some say the 1999 film shows Ruth talking smack and pointing at the Cubs dugout, not center field.