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Babe Ruth Runs Into Wall; Knocked Unconscious

I can guarantee you will never see a player do this today. Babe Ruth was knocked unconscious for five whole minutes and stayed in the game, going 3 for 3 ... AND played the second game of a double header. A player gets pulled today for a hangnail.
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Babe Ruth lying unconscious at Griffith Stadium - July 5th, 1924 (Library of Congress)
Babe Ruth lying unconscious at Griffith Stadium – July 5th, 1924 (Library of Congress)

To continue our baseball themed afternoon, here’s another good one from back in the day.

The Yankees were playing the Senators in a doubleheader on Saturday, July 5th, 1924. Walter Johnson pitched the opener and took the loss, giving up 10 hits and 2 runs. Washington was shutout by Herb Pennock. The second game turned out better for the hometown team, and there was a little excitement to boot.

Here’s The Washington Post‘s Frank Young coverage of the game in the newspaper.

In the nightcap, the Nats did the clustering, after a brace of singles, a walk and a suicide had given the visitors a 2-run lead in the first. Marberry then settled down and was as stingy as a Scotchman thereafter with anything which might have done the visitors any good. Meanwhile, his teammates, all pepped up because they had drawn the largest gathering of fans ever to take in a local game, overcame the alien advantage and then went on to turn in victory which enabled them to maintain their two-game leading margin in the flag chase.

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The first fracas came very nearly proving exceptionally costly for Huggins and his crew as Babe Ruth got a bad jolt when rushing headlong into the concrete wall in right after a foul-liner off Judge’s bat in the fourth. The Bambino was knocked unconsciuos [sic] for about five minutes and badly bruised his left hip, but gamely insisted on sticking in that game and also in the second.

I can guarantee you will never see a player do this today. Babe Ruth was knocked unconscious for five whole minutes and stayed in the game, going 3 for 3 … AND played the second game of a double header. A player gets pulled today for a hangnail.

Washington Post headline from July 6th, 1924 newspaper
Washington Post headline from July 6th, 1924 newspaper

The Senators were awesome in 1924, going all the way to the World Series, defeating the New York Giants four games to three.

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Enjoy daily

Ghosts of DC stories.