MIAMI—A bit more than a smidgen in time before you could stream a game on your phone, the Pittsburgh Pirates first caught sight of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the 1927 New York Yankees at 35 minutes past noon on Oct. 5. The Pirates had just finished batting practice before Game 1 of the World Series at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The Yankees were a foreign entity to a National League team, existing only on radio, newspapers or mythology. The Pirates stuck around to watch the Yankees hit. Bad idea.
They had seen nothing like it. Ruth, Gehrig and the boys of Murderers’ Row put on a scary show. The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph reported Pirates fans let loose “a chorus of admiring shouts” as Ruth blasted balls into the seats. “The crowd yelled its awe,” it reported, when Gehrig sent pitches soaring over the right-field wall.
