(Story originally appeared in the Home Run Commemorative Edition of Yankees Magazine.)
Weird confession here: Until I decided to write this story, I had somehow never seen The Sandlot. I don’t know how I had avoided it through the years, but it just never happened. But as I describe in the opening scene in the story (which was a pretty accurate chronology of my reporting), I didn’t have any choice once I started talking to some of the players about their first contact with the legend of Babe Ruth.
We were producing a special edition of Yankees Magazine that was celebrating home runs and home run hitters in Yankees history. I decided to write a story about the Babe Ruth Birthplace & Museum in Baltimore, and I was extremely fortunate to have the museum’s curator, Michael Gibbons, take me around the exhibits, then drive me and a photographer all over the Babe’s Baltimore, showing me other places he lived, the boarding school where he was discovered, and other places from his life. As I detail in the story, though, I didn’t end that day with any clear picture of what I wanted to write. Something about spending time around all these places from Ruth’s past made him smaller, in a way; it was diminishing. That’s not a knock on the museum at all — it does a wonderful job showing Ruth the human. But it’s hard to square that circle with the image of Ruth the superhero.
Confused as to how I should proceed, I posed the question to a bunch of players on the team — what was their first contact with the legend of the Babe. How did their shared experience of being Yankees color their perspectives. I was hoping that the players could help me bridge the gap that separated who I felt Ruth was, and how he was perceived. But the first three players I spoke to — Andrew Miller, Chase Headley and Aaron Hicks, literally the first three players! — all mentioned the same thing: The Sandlot.
Well, I guess I had to watch the movie.
And it was great, of course. I reached out to the writer and director, David Mickey Evans, to see if maybe he could help me answer the question better. And then the inspiration hit, and the words started flowing. I’m really proud of this story, as I think it does a good job looking at the way that we create heroes, and the people that they really are. As the
We discuss this a lot more on this episode of the Yankees Magazine Podcast. Take a listen (and subscribe!).
Anyhow, enjoy the story.
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/209340058/legend-of-babe-ruth-lives-on/