Babe Ruth Pitching

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en-US
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hello folks
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I'm Peter Lemieux with Rounding Third
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I tell baseball stories and once again
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I got a beauty for you gonna tell you a story
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about a player you think you know a lot about
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but I'm gonna share a story I bet you didn't know
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so stay tuned but before we get started
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we have to take our hats off for our anthem
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this field this game
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it's part of our past
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it reminds us of all that was once
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was good and it could be again
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play ball
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so my friends
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we are gonna tell a story
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about Babe Ruth you gotta be kidding me right
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everybody knows about Babe Ruth
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he hit 60 home runs 714 home runs career
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uh he's won a lot of World Series
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played with Lou Gehrig
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was the greatest hitter of his time
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all these stories
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I'm gonna tell you one and it's a baseball story
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it's not myth you know
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the myth about how he once ate 18 hot dogs
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and had to go to the hospital
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now we'll stay off those stories
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we're gonna stay with a story
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that's strictly about baseball
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so it starts off with this
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my dear friends
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did you know that Babe Ruth was a pitcher
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oh yeah
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I knew he said he was a pretty good pitcher
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yeah stuff like that
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no he wasn't a pretty good pitcher
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he was emerging as the best left-handed pitcher
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in all of baseball in the years 1916
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1915 through 1919 when he played for the Boston Red Sox
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yes this is the guy
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Babe Ruth the Great Bambino
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Sultan of Swat, Colossus of Clout
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King of Crash was a pitcher
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not just a pitcher but a really good pitcher
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so I got an example this is not a good example
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but bear with me I make a big deal out of no-hitters
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because even if you're a lousy pitcher
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if you pitch a no-hitter
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there's a section in the Hall of Fame
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that lists all the no-hitters in there
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Babe Ruth and another pitcher
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guy by the name of Ernie Shore
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pitched a no-hitter
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but Babe Ruth did not deserve to be mentioned
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uh June 23rd, 1917
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the Red Sox were playing the Washington Senators
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Babe Ruth was pitching
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he had a 12 and 4 record and had pitched seven complete
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seven complete games in a row
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so the game starts
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and Babe Ruth walks the first batter on four pitches
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gets so angry with the umpire
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screams and hollers makes a great scene
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and gets ejected from the game
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faced one batter and walked him
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they trotted out a guy by the name of Ernie Shore
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the batter gets caught stealing
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Ernie Shore then pitches 26 consecutive outs
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and they won four to nothing
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immediately Ernie Shore
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gets credit
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for a perfect game 'cause he didn't walk anybody
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didn't allow any hits
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but it wasn't a perfect game because of the Babe's walk
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so they later on did change it to a combined no-hitter
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Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore have a combined no-hitter
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and Babe Ruth did nothing but face one batter
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and walked him
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but there he is with a combined no-hitter
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well that's a funny one
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um by the way
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for his antics of getting thrown out
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he was fined $100 big money back then
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and suspended from baseball for 10 days
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and had to make a public apology
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so he must have really thrown quite a tantrum
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now to the point
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in the years 1915 1916
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and 1917 Babe Ruth had established himself
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as the best left-handed pitcher in baseball
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so I know it's boring to listen to statistics
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but in 1915 the Babe went 18 and 8
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with a 2.44 earned run average
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and a 217 innings pitched
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he was just getting started
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the next year they
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ranked his innings up to 323
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but his earned run average went down to 1.75
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for the whole season he won 23 games and lost 12
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by the way in that year
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the Red Sox did go to the World Series
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they pitched Babe Ruth in Game 2 of that World Series
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and once again Babe Ruth set the record books aflame
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he allowed one run in the top of the first inning
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on an inside-the-park home run
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and then shut out the Brooklyn Robins
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who would become the Dodgers
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by the way just as an aside
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Casey Stengel played for Brooklyn in this World Series
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the Babe did not allow a run
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through the rest of the game
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but it was 1 to 1 so he pitched the tenth
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11th
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12th
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13th and 14th innings
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allowing no runs this man pitched 14 innings
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gave up one run
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13 consecutive innings without giving up a run
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The Red Sox won the game 2 to 1
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in the bottom of the 14th inning
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Babe Ruth of course
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was glorified
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never had anybody pitched a game like that
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in World Series history nor since
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and I maybe I'm wrong but
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of 14 innings 13 shutout innings in a row
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and they won the game
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and the Red Sox won the World Series
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so the next year the Babe is established
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himself as a great pitcher
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he cranks his innings up a couple
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he pitches 326 innings instead of 323
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he now wins 24 games with an earned run average of 2.01
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at this point in his career
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it was pretty well established
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that Babe Ruth was going to be a Hall of Fame
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quality pitcher
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but the Red Sox
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who kind of mismanaged Babe his whole career
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were really attracted to his hitting
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so what they did is they lowered his pitching down
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so that he could bat more
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knowing what we do do about Babe
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that sounds like a good idea
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the numbers kind of confuse you
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Babe's innings went way down
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166, almost half of what he did the year before
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still won 13 games with an earned run average of 2.22
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but like I said they wanted him in the lineup and they
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they were delighted with his results
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I'm not you won't be
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but this was baseball in 1918 okay
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he batted .300
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level .300 and hit sitting down for this one
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11 home runs
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well that's no big deal
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we got part time infielders hitting 11 home runs
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now my friends
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in 1918 11 home runs
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led the majors in home runs
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Babe Ruth led the majors with 11 home runs
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and the Red Sox were just delighted
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so they cranked it up more
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they cut his innings down
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he only won nine games in 1919
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however he batted .321 and hit shockingly
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29 home runs the whole Red Sox team that year hit 33
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they hit four home runs in the whole season
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that weren't Babe Ruth
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and it was clear that this guy was going to be a batter
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and they virtually ended his pitching career
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because at the end of that year
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the owner of the Red Sox
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who had fallen in love with an actress
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wanted money to put a Broadway play on
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with her starring the play was called No,
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No, Nanette, but he didn't have enough money
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so he traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees for cash
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and put on No, No, Nanette
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Babe Ruth went on to do amazing things
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record setting things many years
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hitting more home runs than other teams would
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the whole team would hit. Babe outhomered
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other teams and as an aside
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story for another day probably saved baseball
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because in 1919
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when they traded Babe
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that was the year of this Black Sox scandal
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probably the best team in baseball at that time
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the Chicago White Sox
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were caught cheating
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taking cash to blow World Series games
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and that was the Black Sox scandal
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people got kicked out of baseball
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and it's it's a great story in itself
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but what happened is the fans were so disillusioned
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with the national pastime
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that they were watching rigged and fixed games
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that the attendance started to drop
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at the same time 1920
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the Babe started to hit home runs
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so his his home runs
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brought people back to see the games again
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that aside let me go back to the tragedy of the Red Sox
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the Red Sox by the year 1919
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there had been 14 World Series played
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The Red Sox had won five of them
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and I might be wrong
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but I think they participated in half the World Series
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winning five of them they were the major power
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1904 through 1919
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the Red Sox but trading Babe for No,
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No, Nanette
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they did not win again till 2004
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they call this the Curse of the Bambino um
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because they traded Babe Ruth
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it was believed they were not allowed to win again
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there's a bridge in Boston called the Longfellow Bridge
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there was a sign cautioning people about a curve
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people doctored that curve to say
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Reverse the Curse, they changed the word curve to curse
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and that sign stayed on the bridge
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year after year after year
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because they remembered because Babe Ruth got traded
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the gods of baseball
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would never allow them to win again
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in 2004 when they finally won the World Series
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that sign was taken down um
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86 years they went without winning a World Series
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and of course
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myth has it is because they made this stupid
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stupid trade of Babe Ruth for No,
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No, Nanette
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so I wanted you to be aware that Babe Ruth
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all the stories about him and that
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that's a whole there's
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we could do many shows on Babe Ruth
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but I wanted to tell you that
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for a three or four year period of time
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this guy was an amazing pitcher
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including 14 inning complete game in a World Series
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um 23, 24 wins
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earned run average around 2.0
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he was awesome
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but Red Sox said well
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you're not gonna pitch so much cause we want you to hit
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and as soon as he proved he could hit
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they traded him for a Broadway play
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that's my story for today
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I hope you enjoyed it I'm Peter Lemieux
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Rounding Third, send this story out to other people
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let's not keep it a secret
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subscribe like
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tell your friends about it
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let's increase the family
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if you've got another story you want to share with us
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about Babe or your favorite great hero
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let us have it you know
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memories keep us mentally healthy
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when we have good ones
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baseball allows us the opportunity
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to go back into our past and take the good memories
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and relive them over and over again
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I want all of you to have a great day
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I'm Peter Lemieux and I will see you the next time