THE BABE ON APRIL 29, 1923, IN Clifton

By Jack DeVries

You wouldn’t know it today – not with Getty Ave. running through its right field and its wonderful grandstand with leather-backed chairs long gone. But behind the large reddish brick building at 1500 Main Ave. – the former Doherty Silk Mill – was the original “field of dreams.”

And, on April 29, 1923, George Herman Ruth of the New York Yankees made this lost Clifton field his own.

Before an estimated 12,000 fans and another 5,000 outside the Doherty Oval’s gates, the Babe hit a titanic home run over not one but two fences – the ball traveling anywhere from 400 to 500 feet and rolling to a stop more than 600 feet from the plate.

What followed was nearly as spectacular.

Eleven days before on April 18, 1923, Ruth opened his own “house” – the magnificent Yankee Stadium – belting a game-winning home run to beat Boston. That Sunday morning, thousands of local fans waited outside the Doherty Oval wanting to see the Bambino replicate his feat. The line of people stretched from the ticket booth and along Main Ave. and ended blocks from Passaic.

The Babe had good memories of the Clifton area and the Doherty Oval. As a member of the 1919 Boston Red Sox, he blasted a three-run shot in a loss to the Silk Sox – earning perhaps the first money he ever received for hitting a home run when mill owner Harry Doherty presented him with a $5 bill. His shot carried some 400-feet and landed on a shed beyond the 275-foot right field fence. Remembering his blast, the Bambino predicted he would earn $20 from Doherty that day.

100 years ago, Clifton rioted after the Sultan of Swat homered at Doherty Oval.

The Yankees arrived on the 11 am at the Market Street Station in Newark and had lunch in Passaic before going to the ballpark. Ruth traveled to Clifton in his own car, knowing the roads from his frequent trips to friend Jimmy Donohue’s Black Sea Hotel, a speakeasy on the Garfield border near the Passaic River.

By 2 pm, the crowd at the Doherty Oval had snapped up the upper and lower grandstand tickets and bleacher seats. In a roped off area, 2,000 more stood behind the outfielders at least 10 deep and pressed against the fence. The umpires mandated any ball hit into this crowd would be a ground-rule double. No one there wanted to see any doubles.

By 2:30 pm with 12,000 or more inside, the Doherty Oval’s gates were locked, leaving a mass of disappointed fans outside. During batting practice, the Babe put on a show. After fouling off the first pitch, he slammed the next ball over the center field fence and another over the right field wall. Three more batting practice homers followed. Outside, fans fought to catch the balls that dropped liked mortars from the sky above.

After Ruth’s batting practice blasts, the Passaic Daily Herald’s Tom Dugan wrote, “The crowd went dippy.”

Field of Dreams

Since 1916, fans had come to watch games on the Doherty Oval’s lush carpet of green, surpassed only by the turf at the new Yankee Stadium.

It was on this field where mill owner Harry Doherty’s Silk Sox beat great teams, like the New York Giants, the African American Lincoln Giants, Brooklyn Royal Giants and Hilldale Daises, and the Latin Cuban Giants. Unlike the segregated major leagues, any team could play here if they were good enough.

The Doherty Silk Sox players were well paid – some making more in independent ball than they could in the big leagues. Outfielders Jim Eschen, Howard Lohr and Bibbs

Raymond were of major league caliber but remained in semipro ball because of good salaries and the opportunity to hold a steady job and live with their families year-round.

Opposing teams were well-paid, too. That day, the Yankees would receive more than $2,000 from the gate, and Doherty was ready to award any player $5 for a home run hit, especially the Babe.

Every dime Doherty took in from the crowds went to the Red Cross and he posted a sign on the outfield wall saying just that. He also allowed Clifton High to use his beloved ballpark for free and each one of his 1,000 employees was given a pass to every game

Doherty built his ballpark behind the mill (hailed as the largest individual silk weaving plant in the United States) after his baseball-hating father died. Like everything in life, Doherty wanted it to be the best.

“He believed,” son Paul Doherty said, “money was made to be spent.” The Doherty Oval was designed by Henry Fabian in 1916, who maintained the Polo

Grounds for the New York Giants. Fabian gave the job of building it to his aide Michael O’Leary. The results were spectacular.

Seeing the Doherty Oval for the first time in 1922, Chicago Cubs manager Bill Killefer said, “Chicago has the best diamond in the National League. I must admit this has it on our diamond.” The diamond Killefer referred to was located in Cubs Park, soon to be renamed Wrigley Field.

The Silk Sox players also reflected Doherty’s passion for excellence.

During 12 seasons in Clifton, the Silk Sox won just under 400 games, dominating other independent teams, including the famous Brooklyn Bushwicks. Against the talented Black teams, the Silk Sox went 73-77-4. Though Doherty’s team had a losing record in 33 exhibition games against major league outfits, the scores were often close.

But when the circus named Babe Ruth came to town, the Doherty Oval was at its best.

Game On

Much to the huge crowd’s delight, the Silk Sox and Yankees played an entertaining, high-scoring game, with each team’s offense helped by the short outfield ringed by a sea of fans. Pitching for the Silk Sox was Milt Gaston, whom the Yankees would sign at the end of the season.

With the Yankees winning, 9-6, in the eighth, Ruth came to the plate. On the day, the Sultan of Swat had walked twice, grounded out and collected an RBI single.

A fan yelled, “Get five, Babe!” referring to Doherty’s home run bonus. “I need it,” Ruth shouted back. “Watch me swing!” Having replaced the tiring Gaston in the eighth, Athenia’s Frank Talcott was on the mound for the Silk Sox. After graduating from Clifton High, the tall lanky right-hander had gone on to Yale University, becoming the school’s ace pitcher, going 7-0 in 1918.

After a few unsuccessful runs at the big leagues with Detroit and Boston, Talcott returned to the area where he became a chemist and noted semipro hurler.

The last time Talcott faced Ruth –then with the 1919 Boston Red Sox –he walked him. This time there would be no walks. Frank was going after him.

Talcott threw and Ruth fouled the pitch off (or took it wide for a ball, depending on what newspaper writer is to be believed). Frank peered in with his blue eyes again, got the sign from Doherty catcher Paddy Smith, and went into his windup …

At Jimmy Eschen’s 1960 wake, his former Silk Sox teammates gathered at the Wanamaker and Carlough Funeral Home in Sloatsburg, N.Y., to pay tribute to their player-manager. Eschen’s son Larry said it wasn’t long before the conversation turned to the 1923 game against Ruth and the Yankees.

Eschen recalled Talcott, now 62, speaking with his former teammates. As he spoke, Frank drifted back in time and relived the pitch he threw to the Bambino.

“I had a pretty good drop,” Eschen remembered Talcott saying, “so I threw it to Ruth. He hit it nine miles.”

Ruthian Blast

On the second pitch, Babe shot his bulk forward, corkscrewing his bat around and smacking Talcott’s offering with a loud crack. No ball was ever hit in Clifton like it since.

The ball flew high over the Doherty Oval’s right field wall and the fans behind it. The blast kept going, sailing over a second fence that kept people off the bordering railroad tracks. Wendell “Windy” Merrill of the Passaic

Daily Herald wrote: “(Ruth) was down to second base before the ball struck the ground.”

Passaic Daily News writer George H. Greenfield best described the moment:

“Zowie! Twelve thousand necks on twelve thousand shoulders turned simultaneously in the general direction of right field, while twelve thousand throats roared their enthusiastic approval of the feat. The ball traveled so high that it almost became lost in the thick haze that hovered over the desert wastes of Clifton around the hour of sunset. The higher it went the louder the delighted fans shouted and the deeper they gasped.

“The pill came down on the far side of the fence that runs alongside the roadway outside of the Doherty Park. Hitting the ball over the right field wall is not considered much of a feat for a good slugger, but when it journeys over BOTH FENCES, even the most anti-Ruth propagandist will admit it was quite a smack; yes, quite a smack.”

After the home run, hundreds of young fans raced under the outfield ropes, heading toward Ruth after he crossed the plate. Adults followed and the fans soon surrounded the smiling Bambino in the dugout. Next, they pulled him back onto the field and tried lifting him onto their shoulders. The Babe ended up sprawling in the dirt, covered by children.

Fearing their star was in trouble, the Yankees – led by Henry “Hinkey” Haines, a former All-American football star at Penn State – pushed into the crowd to rescue their teammate with their bats outstretched. The fans surged forward, knocking the players to the ground.

Chief William Coughlan and his 14 Clifton policemen rushed to the Yankees aid, as did the Silk Sox players, pulling fans off the Babe and his teammates. A policeman grabbed Ruth and guided him through the crowd – a young fan still clinging to the Bambino’s leg. Other Clifton fans happily invaded the visiting dugout and helped themselves to the Yankees’ baseball equipment.

Throughout the chaos, Ruth had the time of his life.

Greenfield wrote: “Through all the excitement and crush and milling, the Babe retained a high good humor that made a decided hit with everybody … the broad grin that covered his face all afternoon served to make his popularity grow to even larger proportions.”

After 10-15 minutes of trying to get the fans back in the stands, umpire-in-chief Jake O’Sullivan had no choice but to call the game and declare the Yankees winners.

With Ruth in the clubhouse guarded by policemen, “thousands of kids” waited outside. After the police escorted him to his car, the Babe “pulled into Main Avenue and fairly beat all speed records toward Passaic in an effort to get away from his youthful admirers.”

By 1927, the advent of the automobile caused the crowds to dwindle and Harry Doherty closed his ballpark, making the Silk Sox an exclusive road team. By 1930, Getty Avenue tore through the Doherty Oval’s right field where Ruth’s homer once soared and Clifton’s “field of dreams” was no more.

But 100 years ago this April 29, there was no field more magical. Babe Ruth made sure of that.

Jack DeVries’ book, “The Doherty Silk Sox,” from which some of this story is excerpted, is complete and being shopped to literary agents and publishers. We’ll keep you updated when this unique piece of Clifton history is published.

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