The first game was tied when the ninth inning came up. Williams retired the first two Red Sox batters. Ruth strode to the plate. The fans were calling for a home run. It was one of the first occasions on which fans exhibited a real belief in the potentiality of their hero. Fans had always called for home runs but most of the time their demands had been born of desperation rather than hope. Ruth justified their faith that day by walloping a long home run over the LEFT FIELD FENCE off Williams, a LEFTHANDED PITCHER. The magnitude of that feat will be lost on the newer fans today, but back in 1919 it was nothing short of colossal. Left-handed batters just did not hit home runs off lefthanded pitchers over the left field wall. After the game, the Chicago White Sox players, who had not yet been touched by the taint of crookedness, crowded the Boston clubhouse shaking hands with Ruth, yelling congratulations, shouting, "Where'd you get that drive?" Even the losing pitcher, Lefty Williams, came in to express his horrified disbelief to the Babe.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The first game was tied when the ninth inning came up. Williams retired the first two Red Sox batters. Ruth strode to the plate. The fans were calling for a home run. It was one of the first occasions on which fans exhibited a real belief in the potentiality of their hero. Fans had always called for home runs but most of the time their demands had been born of desperation rather than hope. Ruth justified their faith that day by walloping a long home run over the LEFT FIELD FENCE off Williams, a LEFTHANDED PITCHER. The magnitude of that feat will be lost on the newer fans today, but back in 1919 it was nothing short of colossal. Left-handed batters just did not hit home runs off lefthanded pitchers over the left field wall. After the game, the Chicago White Sox players, who had not yet been touched by the taint of crookedness, crowded the Boston clubhouse shaking hands with Ruth, yelling congratulations, shouting, "Where'd you get that drive?" Even the losing pitcher, Lefty Williams, came in to express his horrified disbelief to the Babe." in the context of "Waite Hoyt, on Ruth's record-tying 27th home run of 1919, in Babe Ruth As I Knew Him (1948) by Hoyt, p. 5 and 7" to mean that wisdom is timeless.