As for the booze-begotten yarn about Babe Ruth's 'called-shot,' I was there that day—at the elbow of Damon Runyon, no less, assigned to provide Runyon with any information he wanted about the Cubs or anyone else. No one in the press box or emergency press box that day, nobody at the press party that evening, and no one the next day even mentioned the incident except to emphasize the bitter exchange between the Cubs and Yankees. Charlie Root first laughed and, in his later years, grew angry when asked about it. One of the last letters I had from Dorothy Root before she died thanked me as a prophet of truth and the Babe himself, in Boston in 1935, said to me pretty much the same as your quote from Hal Totten.✱

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "As for the booze-begotten yarn about Babe Ruth's 'called-shot,' I was there that day—at the elbow of Damon Runyon, no less, assigned to provide Runyon with any information he wanted about the Cubs or anyone else. No one in the press box or emergency press box that day, nobody at the press party that evening, and no one the next day even mentioned the incident except to emphasize the bitter exchange between the Cubs and Yankees. Charlie Root first laughed and, in his later years, grew angry when asked about it. One of the last letters I had from Dorothy Root before she died thanked me as a prophet of truth and the Babe himself, in Boston in 1935, said to me pretty much the same as your quote from Hal Totten.✱" in the context of "Jim Gallagher, as quoted in "The `Called Shot` That Won`t Go Away" by Jerome Holtzman, in The Chicago Tribune (February 25, 1992)

^✱See said quote—i.e. Ruth interviewed by Hal Totten, circa spring 1933—in Quotes.