Lobbying the Babe (the ghost of Babe Ruth)

http://news.mainetoday.com/ | 10/10/03 | Bill Nemitz

[NewHampshireDuo]

The Gate of Heaven Cemetery had just opened Wednesday morning when workers first spotted him. He wore a Boston Red Sox jersey. He clenched a cold beer in one hand, a bottle of whiskey in the other. He unfolded his lawn chair, sat down and stared in grim-faced silence at the letters chiseled into the towering granite monument:

George Herman Ruth.

"We had to chase him away," said Bill Lane, assistant superintendent of the 180-acre burial ground in Hawthorne, Westchester County, N.Y., in a telephone interview. "This is a cemetery - you can't just sit here and drink. We're trying to maintain a certain degree of dignity."

Fair enough. But who can blame visitors to Gate of Heaven this week for trying to achieve something eternally more difficult? Fifty-five years after he took The Curse to his grave, Babe Ruth finds himself under siege by those who want it lifted - and those who don't.

It started early this week, when Lane and his fellow workers noticed an increase in activity around the Babe's spacious plot, which he shares with his second wife, Claire. (Billy Martin, another Red Sox nemesis, sleeps just a few sites away.) The Red Sox were on the verge of beating the Oakland A's - and on the other side of that divisional series, the New York Yankees waited to fight for the American League pennant.

In other words, history beckoned - again. The same history that has dogged the Red Sox since 1918, when they won their last World Series before selling the Babe to the Yankees for a paltry $125,000. The same history that has brought them four times to Game 7 of a World Series - and four times to a final, crushing defeat. The same history that some fervently believe will repeat itself over and over until the Babe himself, out of mercy or maybe mere boredom, relaxes his stranglehold on the fate of Fenway's faithful.

"A lot of people have left notes," Lane said. "Some say 'Babe, please end the curse.' But others say, 'Don't let up Babe! Keep the curse alive!' "

Several times over the past few days, cemetery workers have come by and gathered the notes into a cardboard carton for safe keeping. They've also picked up the gifts.

One visitor left two framed pictures of the Babe - resplendent in his Red Sox uniform. No sooner had that person quietly departed when two Yankees fans walked up to the grave, turned the pictures around so nobody could see them, and walked away.

Others have left baseballs, bats, helmets, caps and gloves.

Or flowers.

Or beer - lots of beer.

One person offered up a Little League trophy.

Another left a hot dog smothered in sauerkraut. A Fenway Frank, perhaps?

"I have no idea," Lane chuckled. "It went out with the garbage."

It's hardly the first time Ruth's grave has attracted a crowd. Back on his 100th birthday in 1995, hundreds of baseball buffs gathered in the snow to mark the occasion. They left the message "Happy Birthday, Babe!" in huge letters carved deep into the snow.

"Every day, we have people come in and ask where they can find Babe's grave," Lane said. "I grew up near here and my Dad started bringing me when I was two."

But this is different. As the Red Sox and Yankees prepared for Game 1 Wednesday, Lane found himself negotiating with network camera crews desperate for footage of the burial site-turned-sacrificial altar. Then on Thursday, with the Red Sox up by one, a Japanese crew showed up, determined to capture The Curse on tape.

"It seems to be getting up to another level for some reason," Lane said. "Maybe it's because the Red Sox actually have a chance this year."

Not that he cares. Lane is a Mets fan - meaning he knows what it's like to hate the Yankees but couldn't care less about the Red Sox.

"But I really don't like (Yankees pitcher) Mike Mussina," Lane said. "So I'm glad the Red Sox beat his butt last night."

But what about The Curse? Being there every day and all, Lane surely must have an inside track on what's going on six feet under that headstone. Can he give us some hint on what's in store for the Red Sox? What's the Babe doing down there?

"I think he's resting," Lane said noncommittally.

Resting? Yeah, right . . . whaddya mean, resting?

"He's got a game tonight."