Have heard this discussion for years, and can't believe it still continues.
Babe Ruth was one of the most over-the-top, bigger-than-life, and self-promoting athletes of all time. As an earlier poster said, he was also a big boy who knew how to handle himself. So why wouldn't Ruth have just initially come out and confirmed and admitted that he in fact did purposely point to center field, intending to hit the ball out of the park in that direction. It is simple, BECAUSE HE DID NOT DO IT!
Ruth initially said he was merely pointing at the Cubs dugout to remind their taunting players he still had one more strike. It was only after the reporter, Joe Williams, of the Scripps-Howard newspaper network put out the story about Ruth having called the shot to center field, and it took off and gained national attention, that Ruth started to change his story and when soon after was asked if he had called his shot, would respond, "It's in the papers, isn't it?". But again, that kind of response still didn't actually have him saying that yes, he did call his shot. And then as more time went by, the obviously media savvy Ruth quickly realized the value to his reputation and took and ran with the story as true, and eventually ended up making even more dramatic claims and embellishments to it as absolutely true after all as more and more time went by, as further boosts to his ego and reputation. What an effing joke! Had Ruth intentionally done it after all, he would have said so from the beginning. If there is one thing that Babe Ruth was definitely not, it was about being shy about himself and letting everyone else know how good he was.
And this is in no way meant to demean Ruth, nor downplay how great a player he was. And in fact, one can only admire him for the way he was able to work the media to his advantage and gain back in the day. What's the old joke still out there these days, "If it's on the internet it must be true!", right? Well just remember, back in Ruth's days the newspapers were what are the equivalent of today's internet! Think about it.
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