THOMA COLUMN | The Babe and Long Bob: A bright second light
Sep. 26—Sleepy Eye will next month celebrate the centennial of Babe Ruth's barnstorming visit to that small Brown County community, an appearance that featured two homers by the Bambino.
Ruth has largely passed from living memory, but as evidenced by the Sleepy Eye event, his grip on the American imagination remains strong. In no other sport do we entertain the notion that the oldtimers were a match for today's athletes; in baseball, it remains, at least at the emotional level, almost impossible to argue that anybody other than Ruth was the greatest ever.
So Sleepy Eye is justified in commemorating its connection to this legend.
But I have the misbegotten notion that baseball history isn't just about the great players. It's also about the good ones and the bums. And the 1922 barnstorming tour that brought Ruth to Sleepy Eye also featured Bob Meusel, Ruth's corner outfield counterpart on the Yankees who was for a decade a notable player himself — and whose own claim to greatness was damaged to cater to the Babe.
Meusel was one of two Southern California brothers who hit in the middle of the order for chronic pennant winning teams in New York. Emil "Irish" Meusel was the leftfielder for the Giants when they won four straight National League titles in 1921-24, leading the NL in RBIs in 1923.
One notable difference between the two Meusels: "Long Bob" (he was 6-foot-three) had a renowned throwing arm, and Irish had a notoriously weak arm. Supposedly Irish and his manager, John McGraw, once encountered a beggar who opened his plea with: "I lost my arm ..." only to have McGraw interrupt: "Irish ain't got it."
Anyway, the brothers were on opposite sides in three straight World Series, 1921, 1922 and 1923. The Giants won two of the three.
That Bob Meusel and Ruth were barnstorming at all after the World Series in 1922 is curious. Both were suspended that year until May 20 for violating a ban on barnstorming by World Series participants in 1921. Both Ruth and Meusel, the heart of the lineup, missed more than a month of play as a result, but the Yankees eked out a second straight pennant anyway.
It was one of Ruth's worst statistical seasons in his Yankees tenure: He hit "just" .315 with 35 homers and 96 RBIs. Meusel's counting numbers also suffered: his 88 RBIs was his second lowest total in an eight-year span.
The 1921-23 Yankees won three straight pennants and one World Series title with an outstanding pitching staff and a lineup heavily dependent on Ruth, Meusel and first baseman Wally Pipp. They lost a close pennant race to the Washington Senators in 1924 and collapsed in 1925, when Ruth had his notorious "bellyache" and Pipp lost his job to a young Lou Gehrig.
That lost season happened to be Meusel's best power year: 35 homers and 134 RBIs, each of which led the league. It also set the stage for another string of pennants in 1926-28, with two World Series titles.
Meusel hit fifth for the famous 1927 Yankees, between Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri, each of whom has a plaque in the Hall of Fame. Six members of that team are in the Hall; Meusel is not. He played just 11 seasons in the majors. He had neither the career numbers nor the peaks to merit entry.
One reason for the shortness of his career: the sun field. Remember, all games then were played in the daytime. All parks are laid out, roughly, with home plate to the west and center field in the east, but the specific angle differs from park to park. In some parks, left field gets the worst of the sun; in others, right field does.
We think of Ruth as a right fielder because left field was notoriously the sun field in Yankee Stadium, and the Yankees protected his eyes by keeping him out of the sun field, home or road. Meusel spent the bulk of his career switching between left and right field, always spending his defensive innings squinting into the glare so that Ruth didn't have to.
Ruth got the spotlight. Meusel got the sunlight.
Edward Thoma is at ethoma@mankatofreepress.com. Twitter: @bboutsider.
