A Sandburg Stumper

[Rob Wick]

In the Fall 2019 issue of the Carl Sandburg State Historic Site newsletter Inkling and Idlings, Rich Hanson wrote the following on Sandburg's interview with Ruth.

"Harry Golden recounts an interview that Carl Sandburg, working as a reporter and a columnist for the Chicago Daily News, did with the Yankee slugger, Babe Ruth, during spring training in Florida in 1929. As you’ll discover, Sandburg found him to be a difficult interview. Read carefully, and you’ll get a sense of Ruth’s disdain for the questions.

Sandburg asked, “If some kid ballplayers asked you for five rules, five big points to watch-what would you tell them?”
The Babe responded: “1.Cut out smoking and drinking. 2. Get enough sleep. 3. Get the right things to eat.”

Anyone familiar with Ruth’s gargantuan appetite, vices, and lack of self-discipline will chuckle at the above.
Carl tried to coax two more out of him, but Ruth instead elaborated on his answer, saying that “a boy can take to drinking and harm himself so he’ll never get over it.”

Sandburg tried a different tack. “If some boys asked you what books to read, what would you tell them?”
“I never get that. They don’t ask me that question. They ask me how to play ball.”
Sandburg persisted. “If you were to name two or three books that you like a lot, what would they be?”
“I don’t know. I like books with excitement…dramatic murders.”

Sandburg gave up the literary queries. He next asked, ”You have met President Coolidge, haven’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“If some boys asked you for a model of a man to follow through life, would you tell them Coolidge is pretty good?”
“Well, I always liked President Harding,” Ruth answered. (This was six years after Harding’s death. By this time the scandals of his mis-administration were common knowledge).

Carl persisted. “If some boys asked you which one of all the Presidents of the United States was the best role model for boys to follow, is there anyone you would like to tell them?”
“President Wilson was always a great friend of mine…” answered the Babe, his voice tailing off.

Sandburg observes in his account of the interview that “The past doesn’t interest the Babe. He is concentrated on the present hours. There is no ancestor worship about him. His face lighted with a sudden glee when he was asked,” “Is there any one character in history you are especially interested in, such as Lincoln, Washington, Napoleon?”
Ruth brushed off the question. “I’ve never seen any of them.”
“Some people say brunettes have always been more dangerous than blondes,” Carl doggedly continued. “How do you look at it?”
“That’s a question. You can’t tell. It’s the personality that counts.”

Probably a bit frustrated by now, Sandburg asked, “What’s your favorite flower?
With a quick laugh, Ruth responded, “I don’t care about flowers.”
“What’s your favorite horse?”
“Oh, I quit that,” Ruth answered. “”I quit playing the ponies long ago.”

Sandburg at this point concluded the interview. You can sense his pity for the man who knew only baseball, and cared for nothing else in the world but baseball…his
livelihood, his “business,” in the way Sandburg ended his written account of the interview.
“And I thanked Babe Ruth, the business man, for giving me so much of his time. And I told him I hoped as a ball player his legs and eyes won’t give out for many years….”

Best
Rob