Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 6-29-2021

Washington Times, June 29, 1921:

The fame of the New York Yankees and busting Babe Ruth is sung wherever baseball is played or known. No greater proof of this is needed than to know that H.G. Dorsch, of Quincy, Calif., who is now in [New York], traveled all the way across the continent to see Babe Ruth play ball.
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Dorsch: “This trip to New York is the greatest experience of my life. I have heard of the Yankees, and of Babe Ruth, and I had always hoped to see them play and to meet Babe Ruth…I am going to remain in New York until the early fall, and perhaps a little longer. If the Yankees are up in the race I’ll stay around as long as they have a chance. I will have plenty to tell the folks back home about the Yankees and about Babe Ruth.

It’s easy to take for granted the ability to see any baseball game you want to see, but reading something like this reminds me how lucky we are these days.

From what I can tell, the person in this article is Henry Dorsch, who was a retired hardware store owner, ex-president of the local Red Cross and former Plumas County commissioner. Not a bad way to spend your retirement.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 6-17-2021

Toledo News-Bee, June 17, 1921:

Babe Ruth has met his match—but it isn’t human. Ruth failed yesterday at balls pitched by a pitching machine operated by compressed air. Slow balls, high balls, low balls, fast and curved balls floated from the nozzle of the machine and Babe couldn’t touch them.

He declared the difficulty was that the batter cannot tell when the ball will be let loose.

Excuses, excuses. Next he’ll want to be allowed to keep his eyes open when the pitch comes.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 6-15-2021

New York Evening World, June 15, 1921:

George Herman Ruth has nothing to do now but break his own batting records. He has broken all others, including his own.

The Babe started in yesterday by smashing the long-distance home run mark he had set the day before by clouting the third ball George Dauss pitched him in the third inning…for a distance of 450 feet, a truly tremendous wallop and said to be the longest hit ever made in major league baseball.

The Babe hit two home runs on June 14, 1921, giving him seven dingers in five days. From June 10-14, 1921, Ruth hit .625/.750/2.063. That seems good.

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 6-14-2021

Toledo News-Bee, June 14, 1921:

Babe Ruth didn’t star as a pitcher on Monday, but he did as a batsman. The Babe started the game on the mound for the Yanks and worked five innings against the Tigers.

Babe was a bit wild and when Detroit got to him for four runs in the fifth he retired in favor of Mays.

But Babe was there when it came to clouting ‘em and he poled his twentieth and twenty-first home runs of the season.

This was Ruth’s last appearance as a starting pitcher until 1930. I wonder what he was doing the rest of that time.

Ohtani wins for Angels in 2-way start like none since Ruth

After giving up four runs while throwing 28 pitches in the first inning — when he walked two, hit another batter and threw a wild pitch — Ohtani got the Angels even at 4-4 in the top of the second when he had a two-run double and then scored on a single by Mike Trout, who had four hits in his return to the lineup.
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The Japanese right-hander retired 14 of the last 15 batters he faced in five innings, with all of his strikeouts in that span. It was his first big league win since 2018, before Tommy John surgery that kept him off the mound for all of 2019 and most of last season.