Byte by Bite

1932 World Series, Yankees vs. Cubs, Babe Ruth Calls His Shot

by Marv Dealy

The World Series I refer to included the game at Wrigley Field where Babe Ruth silenced the raucous crowd by pointing out to center field—although some say he was pointing to Cubs pitcher Charlie Root—then rocketing the next pitch over the centerfield wall for the go ahead score.

Lou Gehrig, who was on-deck at the time, said that Ruth definitely “called his shot” although Root would have none of it, saying that “If he had, I would have knocked him down with the next pitch.” Ruth apparently never talked about the matter contributing yet another mystery to baseball folklore, even though that was his last home run in World Series play.

Our story picks up somewhere in the time period of that World Series, in a restaurant somewhere in Chicago. A young lady by the name of Ruth Stoltze (Nordeen) (born 1/13/1894 and died 9/1984) was out for an evening—accompanied by a man named Fred—when she ran into the Cubs baseball team.

Apparently Ruth knew her brother was a fan and eventually seven players and the Cubs announcer ended up signing the back of a menu page titled “Night Club Specials.” An the front someone named A. Johnson addressed the menu to “My Dearest Ruth.”

The Cubs signing the menu included Lon “Dixie” Warneke, Charlie Grimm, Johnny Moore, Frank Demaree, Riggs Stephenson, Charlie Root and “Gabby” Hartnett. The announcer signed his name as Pat Piper.

Ruth sent the autographed menu to her brother “Dolph” Adolph Nordeen, adding the following note below the ballplayer’s signatures “Dear Dolph: Fred and I were to party last Thursday night and all the Cubs were there so I got these for you, what do you think of Charlie Grimm now [illegible] hot shot eh—Fine boys all of them, love Ruth”

The menu eventually ended up in the possession of Melvin Nordeen,

Adolph’s son, who had it until his death in 2001 at which time it passed to his son Mark Nordeen, who—to bring this story home—walked into my office with this very restaurant menu, wanting to put it on eBay to raise some money to fix his pickup truck.

Well, I thought, this might just be a little more interesting than odd fix-it money for the old truck, so I started poking around to see first if the signatures appeared to be genuine. I was able to find a number of things on past or present auctions on eBay which presented pictures including signatures and based on that observation it appears that Charlie Grimm did indeed sign the menu, as well as the other Cubs players.

Well now, I thought, where might the Cubs, Ruth and Fred have been that night in 1932? A little research led to the infamous Billy Goat Tavern, right across the street from Wrigley Stadium. Formerly called the Lincoln Tavern, it seemed possible that the meeting might have taken place there, so I called the Billy Goat and talked to a bartender who told me to call a writer for the Chicago Tribune by the name of Rick Kogan, saying he’d just written about the Cubs.

I found Kogan’s email on the Chicago Tribune website and emailed him with the story I had so far, and asked for his help in figuring out what club the menu might have come from. He emailed back that “my book is about the Billy Goat Tavern, not the Cubs, but I would hazard to say that this [the menu] is from a nice restaurant which the Lincoln Tavern certainly was not. A guess? The Chez Paree. In any case, a very interesting item. Onward, Rick.”

So off I went to learn about the Chez Paree. Googling Chez Paree Chicago yielded a wealth of information about what turns out to be Chicago’s most famous night/supper club of the 1930s to 1950s, located at 610 N. Fairbanks. From the website www.Faqfarm.com I learned that the club was owned by Joey Jacobson and Mike Frtzel and was popular with underworld bigshots. It’s alleged that Jacobson made gambling payoffs to John “Botchy” Connors and further that on opening night at the Chez Paree Jake Factor was taken for $40,000 in a rigged card game. Factor was a con man and millionaire who faked his own kidnapping to avoid being extradited to England and was responsible for sending an innocent Roger Touhy to prison for life. The entry at Faqfarm.com references the source for this information as “Return to the Scene of the Crime,” by Richard Lindberg.

I checked further and found records of past eBay sales of postcards and the like from the Chez Paree, and the style of the cards and typography from those items pictured at those sales definitely is in the same ball park as our menu (all puns, please rise), so it appears likely that Mark Nordeen’s great aunt was indeed hanging out in a place filled with showgirls, swing bands, big stars, gamblers, the Cubs baseball team and assorted bad guys one night in 1932.

If you have any information that can add to this story, Mark would be most appreciative if you’d pass it along before he puts this up on eBay. “Maybe,” he says wistfully, “I could even get a little newer truck.”

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That’s it for this month from The Computer Guy — e-mail me any rants at marv.dealy@throck.com For your review, these columns are posted on our web site at www.throck.com/articles

Marv Dealy founded Throckmorten Enterprises in San Francisco in 1988 and moved the company to Big Oak Flat in 1996. The company has branches in Boise and Sutter Creek. Throckmorten provides support to companies such as Hewlett Packard and The Griffin Company in “webinars” in addition to marketing, graphic design, newsletter production, web design, wireless Internet networks, computer repair and upgrades (Mac or PC), and network mending. Big Oak Flat office open Monday thru Friday, 8 to 5-ish. Phone 209 962-7308. Sutter Creek open from time to time, and Boise most days.