A Quote by George Vecsey

Whether or not anybody had invented the category in his lifetime, Babe Ruth was surely the Greatest Living Yankee almost immediately upon lofting home runs at the Polo Grounds, allowing the Yankees to build their own palace across the Harlem River.
At a book festival in Fort Lauderdale, I met David Eisenhower, Ike's grandson, who was promoting his book 'Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower,' in which he describes attending the Yankees' 154th game in 1961. The whole family had been following Mantle and Maris chase Babe Ruth's home run record across the country.
But this is the point I want to make: When you talk about steroids and you talk about what it means to the game, the three greatest home run hitters of all time-Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, right? When they were 39 years old, how many home runs do you think they averaged? The three greatest home run hitters of all time averaged 18 home runs at age 39. Now, how many home runs did Barry Bonds hit when he was 39? He hit 73!
People think of the greatest home run hitters of all time and think of Babe Ruth; they don't think about that Warren Spahn hit more than anybody.
During the 1920s New York Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert once described his perfect afternoon at Yankee Stadium. 'It's when the Yankees score eight runs in the first inning,' Ruppert said, 'and then slowly pull away.'
He was a parade all by himself, a burst of dazzle and jingle, Santa Claus drinking his whiskey straight and groaning with a bellyache... Babe Ruth made the music that his joyous years danced to in a continuous party... What Babe Ruth is comes down, one generation handing it down to the next, as a nation heirloom.
For a long time, I'd been vaguely fascinated by the idea that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in the same summer.
'Harlem River' is about the Harlem River in uptown Manhattan. I don't know much to say about it. I came upon that river a couple of years ago. I was doing a walk the length of Manhattan, from the top to the bottom, and I had never seen that river before.
When I first came to Yankee Stadium I used to feel like the ghosts of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were walking around in there.
Babe Ruth made a baseball fan of me. I used to go to Yankee Stadium just to see him come to bat.
Oscar Charleston was the Willie Mays of his day. Nobody ever played center field better than Willie Mays. Suppose they had never given Willie a chance, and we said that, would anybody believe there was a kid in Alabama who was that good? Or there was a black guy in Atlanta who might break Babe Ruth's home run record? No.
I don't want to be Babe Ruth. He was a great ballplayer. I'm not trying to replace him. The record is there and damn right I want to break it, but that isn't replacing Babe Ruth.
They said Babe Ruth built Yankee Stadium and Bruno Sammartino built the Garden. It always was my favorite place.
Now they talk on the radio about the record set by (Babe) Ruth, and (Joe) DiMaggio and Henry Aaron. But they rarely mention mine. Do you know what I have to show for the sixty-one home runs? Nothing, exactly nothing.
They said you'd really have to be something to be like Babe Ruth. But Babe Ruth was an American player. What we needed was a Puerto Rican player they could say that about, someone to look up to and try to equal.
The Greatest Living Yankee is Whitey Ford, who came out of Aviation High School, which was then in Manhattan, and helped pitch the Yankees to victory in the 1950 World Series when he was 21.
No one hit home runs the way Babe (Ruth) did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off for the stands.
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