BABE RUTH with Gary Cooper in the film, “Pride of the Yankees.” (Wikipedia).

With the local baseball scene pretty much wrapped up – Angels battling for last in the AL West and the Dodgers stumbling a bit but almost certain to win the NL West – let’s take a look at some baseball mythology.

A game that took hold of the American imagination before the Civil War is bound to have more interesting stories than other sports. That’s why there are more baseball movies than football, etc.
So, here we go. True of False?.

Baseball was invented in 1839 by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York.

No one person invented baseball. It evolved from earlier bat-and-ball games such as “town ball” and “rounders.”
The person who deserves the most credit for the game of baseball was Alexander Cartwright who wrote the rules that we are familiar with today: nine innings, three outs, 90 feet between bases, etc.

The first game played under those rules came in 1845 in New York. The New York Nine (working men) defeated the Knickerbockers (wealthy guys) 24-1. So, false.

Babe Ruth “called his shot” with a home run in the 1932 World Series against the Chicago Cubs. The story goes that Ruth was mad at the home Cubs fans, so to silence them, he pointed to center field and hit the ball there. False (probably).

In an interview given in 1933, Ruth reportedly said, “Hell, no. Only an idiot would do that.” He explained that since he had two strikes on him, he gestured with one finger, indicating,”I’ve still got one pitch to hit.”

On the other hand (so to speak), as the appeal of the “called shot” grew, Ruth became more cagey in his answers. Maybe the gesture also contained a boast, after all…

The Dodgers were the first major league team with plans to move to the West Coast. The 1941 St, Louis Browns were having a bad season, finishing sixth in the eight-team American League.

Even worse, the team was doing poorly at the box office, drawing just about 175,000 fans for the season. Owner Donald Lee Barnes, seeing a chance to pioneer big league baseball on the West Coast, gained preliminary permission to make the move. However, the final vote of American League owners was set for Dec. 8, 1941. But, no one was anxious to move to the Pacific Coast after the events of December 7.

The Dodgers didn’t move to L.A. until 1958. So false.