Jack Bales Provides New Perspective on Babe Ruth

It’s the shot discussed—and disputed—around the world:  Babe Ruth’s home run during the third game of the 1932 Chicago Cubs – New York Yankees World Series.  Did the Yankees’ Babe Ruth really (and perhaps arrogantly?) point to the outfield before he slammed a ball into the center-field bleachers at Chicago’s Wrigley Field?  Opinions have usually fallen along partisan lines, but in an article for ChicagoSide, an online sports magazine, Reference and Humanities Librarian Jack Bales quotes Cubs players who insisted that Babe Ruth did indeed point to the bleachers and Yankees players who said that the tale was all made up.  Bales originally wrote about the Called Shot for his website, http://WrigleyIvy.com, which he created while participating in UMW’s “Domain of One’s Own” faculty initiative this past spring.  His extensive article on Chicago Cubs President William Veeck Sr. will soon be published in the peer-reviewed Baseball Research Journal, the publication of the Society for American Baseball Research.