The sun beamed bright and warm from the blue October sky on an 86°F afternoon at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, Missouri. With two out in the bottom of the ninth and increasingly hostile fans heckling the visiting outfielders, St. Louis Cardinals captain Frankie Frisch popped up along the left field line. As the ball descended toward the box seats, New York Yankees star Babe Ruth trotted in pursuit, raised his glove, and snagged the foul at the edge of the bleachers to record the final out in game four of the 1928 World Series. For the second consecutive year and the third time that decade, the Yankees were world champions.

It was fitting that Ruth, who “never lost his stride after gathering the ball in and ran to the New York bench waving the ball in the air and laughing,” should snare the final fly, for he had delivered a remarkable series – setting nineteen records during the four-game affair in which he hit .625, scored nine runs, drove in four, hit three doubles and, in the final game, belted three home runs. It was fitting too because Ruth – also nicknamed ‘the Bambino’ – was not merely the brightest star on the field; he was also among the biggest celebrities in the nation – and the champion had more than baseball on his mind as the team returned home to the Big Apple.

When the victorious Yankees’ train pulled into Grand Central Terminal on October 10, Ruth led a band of teammates snaking through a cacophonous crowd of 3,000 adoring New Yorkers. Ruth and first baseman Lou Gehrig were repeatedly “singled out for particular ovations.” Retreating from the exultant mayhem of the Midtown streets below, Ruth’s first stop on his triumphant return to New York was political. He proceeded to the Biltmore Hotel at Madison Avenue and 43rd Street, to the campaign headquarters of Governor Alfred E. Smith, New York’s four-term chief executive and the Democratic nominee for president that year. Bursting into Smith’s suite, Ruth blasted his “unmistakably hearty greetings” to the governor, who beamed, “well, well, well, I’m certainly glad to see you Babe” while slapping the slugger on the back and dubbing him “the boss of the youth of America.”