Babe Ruth

Delco West pitcher Dan MacMillan said his slider wasn't working in the first inning of yesterday's Mid-Atlantic Region (16-18) Babe Ruth championship game against Mifflin County (Pa.). So he simply stuck to his fastball and change-up instead. That's all he needed. MacMillan struck out six and yielded only three hits, while Delco West (5-1) stopped Mifflin, 3-0, to win the double-elimination tournament at Radnor. The win sends Delco West to the Senior Babe Ruth World Series for the first time in 22 years.

Even the free-spending Babe Ruth might have been astonished at the price his old uniform fetched. Exton sports auctioneer David Hunt, acting on behalf of an anonymous client, paid $771,095.70 in an online auction Thursday night for the uniform that the Bambino wore on a 1934 barnstorming tour of Japan. The seller also wanted to remain anonymous, said Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions Inc. The Japan tour, which took place after Ruth's last season with the Yankees, was the great slugger's only barnstorming trip outside the United States, Hunt said.

OK, xenophobes. This should get your pulse rate up. The New York Times reports that producers at Universal Pictures, now owned by the Japanese, have rewritten the script of a movie about an American baseball player who, cut by the Yankees, decides to try his luck in Japan. The new version is, to put not too fine a point on it, more pro-Japanese. A couple of World War II jokes have been eliminated, but, more important, the hero, played by Tom Selleck, eventually succeeds by adopting Japanese ways - intense training, respect for his teammates and a more mystical approach for meeting horsehide with hickory.

Johnny Sylvester, 74, who became a part of baseball lore when Babe Ruth hit three home runs in a World Series game on his behalf in 1926, died Monday of natural causes. He was the gravely ill boy who, before a World Series game against the St. Louis Cardinals, was promised a home run by Ruth. Ruth hit three for the Yankees in a 10-5 fourth-game win. The boy's doctors told reporters he made a sudden recovery after hearing from Ruth, and a legend was born. The incident was immortalized in newspapers, books and a movie.

Just as his successors are expected to do in another week or so, Babe Ruth stayed home when training camps opened in 1930. Having hit 46 homers in 1929, the final season of his three-year contract for $70,000 annually, he demanded $80,000 from the New York Yankees. "Why shouldn't I kick?" Ruth told the reporters who constantly trailed him, even during this holdout. "The Yankees made money, and I helped draw crowds as much as I ever did. . . . Even if I quit baseball today, I'm good for $25,000 a year the rest of my life.

Eric Schmertz has already directed scholarly three-day conferences on two Americans - Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan - whose lives had worldwide impact. Now he's planning his third, and the subject may be even more of a heavy hitter than the two former presidents. In fact, some might say, the original heavy hitter. Babe Ruth. The 100th anniversary of the Babe's birth is February 1995, and Schmertz, a lawyer and baseball fan, is planning to spend his spare time in the next year putting together a conference devoted to the life and folklore of George Herman Ruth.

Those who believe that Barry Bonds is baseball's all-time, single-season power hitter are in for a rude awakening, thanks to Bill Jenkinson. Jenkinson, a consultant for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and an expert on the history of long home runs, has just published a book that aims to prove that Babe Ruth dwarfs Bonds in terms of "pure power. " The book, Recrowning Baseball's Greatest Slugger: The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs, is more than another biography on the storied Yankees slugger.

On the day in 1960 when Maurice Richard ended his unforgettable 18-year career - an event marked by nearly as much grieving in Montreal as the hockey star's death on Saturday - a Canadiens official was asked if the popularity of the "Rocket" exceeded that of the Pope in the predominantly French-speaking Catholic city. "He is not the Pope," answered Camil DesRoches, the Canadiens' public-relations director. "He is God. " For American hockey fans, particularly those in places such as Philadelphia, where the sport is a fairly recent phenomenon, it is impossible to fathom Richard's monumental impact.

Yankee Stadium sits on 11 1/2 acres of hallowed ground on the western edge of the Bronx overlooking the Harlem River. It opened in 1923, the year the New York Yankees won the first of the team's 22 world championships. It is a place that has been consecrated by baseball's giants. Babe Ruth. Joe DiMaggio. Mickey Mantle. Swashbuckling and invincible, the Yankees seemed to embody the national spirit. In the 1920s, before the Empire State Building was finished, people came to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, and Yankee Stadium.

As baseball showcases its All-Stars tonight, there's no way to deny this: The game needs more fun. Baseball is beleaguered by too many black-eye issues: steroid use; domestic abuse; the bottom-line mentality of team owners; agents and lawyers with little or no regard for the game; and unstable teams full of here-today-gone-tomorrow players who are too often greedy and surly. Baseball needs to take a page out of its history. Remember Willie Mays playing stickball on the streets of New York with kids?

HEY MITT, you might as well concede the presidential election now — Charles Barkley says you don't have a chance. Barkley, a former Sixer turned NBA analyst and SportsWeek columnist, is already calling November's election in favor of President Obama. Barkley was part of TNT's broadcast team for Sunday's Celtics-Hawks game when the camera showed Romney, the Republican nominee, in the Boston Garden crowd. "Mitt Romney. Listen main man, we're going to beat you like a drum in November," Barkley said over-the-air.

BASEBALL has its Cy Young Award for best pitcher; football, the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the Super Bowl champs. There's a Bill Russell award for the NBA's most valuable player, and hockey has a Prince of Wales Trophy for whatever. So why not an award for political leadership? In this 24/7 scream-bite news cycle, in which bullying and divisiveness seem to have the upper hand and little gets done, let's recognize political leaders who speak softly but carry an effective stick. It would be passé to name it after Teddy Roosevelt.

Playing at: Reading (AA) Position: Catcher Height: 5-11. Weight: 181. Age: 27. Born: Aug. 17, 1983, in Freeport, Ill. Bats: Right. Throws: Right. How obtained: Selected in the 11th round in 2005. This season: Is hitting a career-best .282 (through Sunday) and is likely to set personal bests for home runs and RBI. He has eight homers and 42 RBI . . . Has hit two of Reading's four grand slams . . . Had a career-high six RBI against Akron on June 1. Career notes: Has been a non-roster invitee to Phillies' spring training each of the last four seasons . . . Was named the best defensive catcher in the Eastern League in 2010 . . . Hit .200 in 16 games at Triple A Lehigh Valley in 2009, the highest level he's reached.

NEW YORK - Because he had not yet officially signed with the New York Yankees, Brian Gordon had to throw a bullpen session on a field adjacent to the new Yankee Stadium upon his arrival Wednesday afternoon. It was on a patch of Bronx real estate where Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle once played the game, and a bystander was impressed by the anonymous righthander getting his work in on the hallowed ground where the original Yankee Stadium once stood. "No one recognized me, but one guy said: 'Hey, you have a good arm,' " Gordon recalled.

Playing at: Reading (AA) Position: Starting pitcher Bats: Right. Throws: Right. Height: 6-3. Weight: 205. Age: 25. Born: May 23, 1986, in Atlanta. How obtained: Drafted in the 15th round in 2009. This season: Is 6-3 with a 4.03 ERA in 12 starts . . . Is tied for second among Eastern League pitchers in wins, trailing only Harrisburg's Brad Peacock . . . Has gotten bounced around lately, surrendering 16 earned runs in his last 27 innings . . . Will start tonight at Bowie (Md., tickets: 301-464-4865)

A team that might look good in plaid As the region's blood pulses a little bluer with the equine extravaganza cantering on in Devon and the last hounds finding their way back to their estates after the Radnor Hunt, Low&Outside reader Sandy Sorlien (Putney School, Bennington, Roxborough? ) sends some suggestions for an All-Preppy/WASPy-Sounding American League team. These player selections have nothing to do with their skill, only their names. They also have nothing to do with their actual WASPiness - some are black and one is part Navajo.

NEW YORK - As if being mentioned in the same sentence as Babe Ruth wasn't cool enough, Wilson Valdez is going to the Hall of Fame now. Actually, only the cap that Valdez wore as the winning pitcher in Wednesday's 19-inning game is headed for Cooperstown, but it is still an incredible achievement for a 33-year-old journeyman from the Dominican Republic who had never played more than 51 games in a season until last year. He became the first player to start a game in the field and win it as a pitcher since Ruth did it 90 years ago. Valdez flashed a huge smile when asked about the cap. Pitching coach Rich Dubee laughed.

ATLANTA - As a part of the ceremonies for Civil Rights Game weekend, the Phillies and Braves will wear throwback uniforms for two consecutive days. On Saturday, the Phillies will wear gray Philadelphia Stars jerseys with navy blue caps to honor the Negro League team. Then on Sunday, it's the powder-blue uniform with maroon hats from 1974. That was the year Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's career home run record. - Matt Gelb

No mas A slugger who once terrified pitchers in both leagues, accumulating 2,574 hits, 555 homers, a .585 career slugging percentage, and a .996 OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage), retired on Friday. According to ESPN's Jayson Stark, only three players in history have assembled that many hits, that many homers, that high an OPS and slugging percentage: Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds and Manuel Aristides "Manny" Ramirez. Noteworthy Pittsburgh's Jose Tabata extended his hitting streak to 10. . . . Los Angeles called up righthander John Ely to start against the San Diego Padres and sent down third-string catcher A.J. Ellis.

A New Stadium, the First Yankees Championship, and the Redemption of 1923 By Robert Weintraub Little, Brown. 421 pp. $26.99 Reviewed by Paul Jablow Someone once said that some material is so good that no bad writing can ruin it. Whoever it was, this book shows he knew what he was talking about. Robert Weintraub's The House That Ruth Built captures a bright moment in baseball history: The first of the Yankees' 27 World Series triumphs, accomplished in 1923, their first year in Yankee Stadium.