Hey, before I get started today, just a quick note.

This podcast originates out of western North Carolina, an area that was recently ravaged by Hurricane Helene.

There are so many across this portion of the state that lost everything, and many are still without power or access to clean water.

Consider a donation to the western North Carolina Red Cross or another local charity that's doing work to bring some normalcy back to life for so many who have been disrupted.

Thanks.

So now onto todays episode of this day in sports history.

A member of the sports History Network, its October 1 and on this day the babe called his shot.

It was game three of the 1932 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the New York Yankees.

This game was played at Wrigley Field and the Yankees had won the first two two games in the series.

In the fifth inning of a four four game, Ruth stepped to the plate against Cubs starter Charlie Root.

Now, Ruth had already hit a three run homer off root in the first inning, but the Cubs bench and the fans packed into Wrigley that day were giving the greatest ball player in the game and the highest paid athlete in the world a really hard time.

The first pitch was a called strike that Ruth thought was well out of the strike zone.

Root delivered another strike.

The yelling from the Cubs dugout and the fans only got louder.

But the count, two balls and two strikes.

What happened next will live on in baseball lore forever and still prompts the question, did he or didn't he?

In film footage shot that day, the babe stepped out of the box and appeared to .2 fingers toward center field.

Root delivered the pitch and the Sultan of Swat belted a solo homer in the exact location that he had just pointed.

Ruth trotted around the bases triumphantly taunting Root as he rounded first, and then he yelled at the Cubs dugout and the fans behind it as he approached third.

He said afterwards he did indeed call his shot, but there remained doubters as to his true intent of the point.

The Cubs catcher that day was Gabby Hartman, and he said it wasnt a called shot that instead he pointed two fingers toward the Cubs bench and said thats only two strikes.

Whether you buy into the idea that he did or he didnt, it is part of the fabric of the game that made Ruth such an interesting character.

The Yankees won the game seven five and then closed out the series with a 13 six win.

The following day.

The 32 World Series would be the last in which the Babe would appear.

On this day in 1961.

It was another famous home run that garnered a lot of attention, and of course, it was a New York Yankee doing the hitting.

It was the final game of the regular season and coming into this one, Roger Maris had equaled Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a season.

Maris Chase had not been a popular one with Yankees fans or even the commissioner's office.

If somebody was to break the babe's record, well, Yankee fans wanted it to be Mickey Mantle.

Commissioner Ford Frick had decreed back in June that unless a player broke Ruth's record in 154 games that Ruth's record would stand as the record for a 154 game schedule and there would be a notation added to anybody who beat it after playing more games.

The so called asterisk.

At the 154 game mark, Maris had 59 home runs.

He hit hash 60 September 26 in game 159.

This game was actually game 163 of the Yankees season.

The Yankees had tied a game earlier in the season and while the stats from an official tie game count, it resulted in a makeup game later in the year.

Maris did not hit a home run in that tie game.

So in essence he did do it.

In 162 games.

The Yankees were playing the Boston Red Sox on this day to close out the regular season.

In the fourth inning, Maris came up to the plate with one out and none on.

And he sent a Bill Stafford pitch deep into the right field seats for home run hash 61 of the year.

So as we talked about a few weeks back, the so called asterisk, even though there was never an actual asterisk added, only suggested the notation stuck around for 30 years and was not removed until six years after Maris death in 1985.

There is something to home field advantage, but I'm not exactly talking about a supportive crowd cheering for their team or the comfortability of sleeping in your own bed and making the short trip to your home ballpark.

With this one, I'm talking about another advantage, the groundskeeper.

There are a lot of stories of groundskeepers doing their part to help out the home team.

There's the story of Bill Veeck instructing his groundskeepers to move the fences.

Back when the New York Yankees came to town, the Chicago White Sox groundskeeper put a little mound in the baselines to keep bunted balls for their speedsters, Nelly Fox and Louis Aporicio to keep the ball in fair territory.

The Los Angeles Dodgers in the sixties had a speedy team and their groundskeeper was known to use a heavy asphalt roller on the outfield grass with the hopes that a typical single may turn into a gap, double or triple.

Well, on this day in 1962 there was a little controversy about whether San Francisco Giants groundskeeper Matty Schwab went a little bit too far.

The Giants and the Dodgers were locked in a tight pennant chase in the final days of the season.

This was the first of a three game series between the two, and the Giants were hosting.

San Francisco manager Alvin Dark was looking for a way to slow down the speedy Maury Wills, who had stolen more than 104 bases during the 62 season, breaking Ty Cobb's record for stolen bases in a season.

Dark went to Schwab and asked if he could help out, and Schwab said he had a few ideas and tricks he'd been thinking about, and so he got to work.

First, Schwab changed the dirt next to first base, the place where Wills would take a lead off first as his preamble for swiping second, Schwab removed the hard dirt there and replaced it with a spongy, soft mix of peat and sand, and then doused it with a healthy dose of water to make sure it was nice and soft.

When the Dodgers came to town, they took batting practice, and Dodgers manager Leo Durocher noticed something strange in the infield, and he began to dig up the area around first base that Schwab had worked on.

Dodger first baseman Ron Fairley built a small sand castle out of the mixture, while home plate umpire for game one, Tom Gorman, saw what was going on, and he understood immediately the intent he found.

Schwab scolded him and then told him that if the infield was not fixed, he would call the game a forfeit and give the win to the Dodgers.

Schwab went back to work with other members of the crew and removed most of the soft dirt mixture.

Well, actually, they did a really good job of making it look like that's what they were doing.

In fact, they only made it softer than before.

But for whatever reason, Gorman and the umpiring crew were satisfied, and Schwab ordered his guys to water the infield, which they did a lot.

In fact, they over watered the field, soaked it down to the dismay of Durocher and the rest of the Dodgers, and it worked like a champ.

The Giants rolled to an eleven two win, and the Dodgers did not steal a single base.

The Dodgers were apoplectic after this game.

A protest was sent into the National League office, with the threat of soil samples being taken before game two of their series.

In the early morning hours prior to game two, Schwab and his crew went to work removing the evidence.

They added a little extra water the next day, so much so that the Umps paused the action and ordered sand to be placed down on top of the base paths.

Well, that turned things back to a swampy mess and had the desired effect that the Giants had always wanted.

San Francisco went on to win the pennant, and they faced the Yankees in the World Series.

And on this day in 1975, it was the thrilla in Manila.

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier had fought each other twice before, with Frazier winning their first meeting in 1971 in the so called fight of the century.

By unanimous decision, Ali refused to accept he'd been beaten in that one, and he battled hard for a second fight.

The second meeting, in 1974, lost a bit of its luster after Frazier was beaten by George Foreman.

The purse for fight number two was minuscule by the standards of the day, but at least that one put Alis NAbF heavyweight title on the line.

Ali won the second fight with a narrow unanimous decision.

This third meeting now would not have happened if Ali had not beaten George Foreman in the rumble in the jungle fight held in Zaire in October 1974.

But with Alis surprise, went against the seemingly unbeatable foreman to add the WBA and the WBC heavyweight title to Alis trophy.

Case opened it up for fight number three between Ali and Frasier, held on this day in the Philippines.

And it got the name Thrilla in Manila, after Alis boast it'll be a killa, a chilla, a thrilla when I get the gorilla in Manila.

There was a lot of pre fight buildup for this one, and it would go down as one of the best fights of the year and one of the all time great heavyweight bouts of.

Ali came out dancing and moving light as a feather, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

Through the first four rounds, Ali looked five years younger than his actual 33 year old self.

He showed his confidence by standing between rounds, leaning up against the ropes instead of taking a seat and resting.

That came back to hurt him a little later in the fight.

Frazier stormed back in the fifth, 6th and the 7th.

Ali then took a seat on his stool between rounds six and seven, and Ali's trainer, Angelo Dundee, lamented the loss of those rounds later.

Ali was a talker during fights as much as he was before one.

When he came out for the 7th round, Ali called Frazier old Joe and said, I thought you were washed up.

Frazier first responded with his mouth, shouting back, somebody told you all wrong, pretty boy.

And then did more talking with his fists.

Now, one thing that limited Ali in this fight was his tendency to grab a fighter's neck and pull them close in a clinche.

In their second meeting, Ali had used that maneuver on Frazier 133 times.

The referee for this fight, Carlos Padilla, made it clear early on that Ali would not be able to get away with clinches in this one.

By the 11th round, Frazier was ahead on the cards and looked primed to take the title back.

But Ali began an assault in the 12th that continued for the following two rounds.

In the 13th, Ali landed a solid left and followed that up with a huge right hand.

That caused the lights in Joe's eyes to dim a good bed.

And by the end of the 13th, momentum had swung back to Ali.

In the 14th, the champ landed several combinations and at one point connected on nine consecutive right hands to a half blind Frazier.

When the bell rang, ending the 14th, Padilla had to guide Frazier back to his corner.

At that point, Frazier's trainer, Eddie Futch, told his fighter, sit down, son.

It's all over.

No one will ever forget what you did here today.

Frazier protested, but Futch was already cutting off his gloves.

The fight was over.

Ali had won.

After the fight, there was a great deal of respect shared back and forth between the two men.

Ali told Frazier's then 14 year old kid, Marvus, who would step into the ring in a few years, that your father is a great man and a great fighter.

Never forget that.

Frazier returned the compliment, saying, ive seen walls tumble under shots that I gave him.

Hes a great champ.

And time now for todays got nothing to do with sports.

Fun fact.

While filming the 1931 movie Skippy child actor Jackie Cooper could not make himself cry while filming a particular scene.

Well, to produce tears out of the young Cooper, the director of the movie, threatened to kill Cooper's real life dog.

That worked.

But yeesh, dude, thats all ive got for you today.

This and every episode of this day in sports history is researched, written, voiced and produced by me, Steve White.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Consider a donation to the western North Carolina Red Cross or another charity of your choosing.

And I will be back tomorrow with another edition of this day in sports history.