Stanley: Babe Ruth drank here

Any Slammers who dream about becoming the next Babe Ruth should keep in mind he had a lot of fun in Joliet – on and off the field.

The ballplayer against whom all others are measured was the one to inaugurate night baseball here, though that was years after his first documented visit.

On July 31, 1922, the New York Yankees finished a three-game set against the White Sox at Comiskey Park. Ruth went 3-for-9 in the series with one homer and three walks. The next day would be an off day while the team traveled to Cleveland.

But Ruth walked over to outfielder Whitey Witt after the last game and said, “A friend of mine is havin’ a ham ’n cabbage dinner out at his brewery tonight,” Witt told author Kal Wagenheim in “Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend.”

Ruth then pointed to a man named Kelly who’d been traveling with the players, playing cards, offering good tips on horse races, and buying shirts and neckties in an attempt to make friends. Ruth told Witt to bring Kelly along if he wanted.

Lloyd Kelly was actually a private detective hired by Yankees owner Cap Huston to spy on the players and report back on their wild nightlife.

Ruth, Witt, Lefty O’Doul and Bob Meusel arrived that evening for the party at the E. Porter Brewing Company on South Bluff Street in Joliet.

Why a brewery was open in the middle of Prohibition would’ve probably been a good question for a police officer like N.J. Fornango ... who also was at the party.

In the middle of the festivities, Kelly proposed a group photo, and the Yankees, the cop and private eye gathered for an image that would prove their presence in Joliet in the early morning hours of Aug. 1, 1922.

Ruth and the other Yankees weren’t happy when team management began disciplining them a few days later with Kelly’s reports and used the photo as evidence. The photo first appeared to the public in a 1950 issue of Collier’s, but later appeared in The Herald-News.

Fornango apparently escaped discipline and was named police chief a few years later.

And Ruth didn’t hold any ill will toward the area. A photo in The Herald-News archives shows him posing with four boys at the ballpark during his playing days. One of the boys is wearing a ribbon that reads “Champion-Will County.”

The Bambino returned to Joliet on June 20, 1940, as part of an exhibition game opening St. Joe’s Park at Raynor Avenue and Theodore Street. Preview stories and advertisements about the home run champion’s appearance occupied space in The Herald-News throughout the month.

And it’s accurate to say readers looked on the front page that morning to see the “idol of young America” kneeling down in his Yankees uniform with a Joliet youth. Joe DiMaggio had posed for a picture after batting practice at Comiskey Park the day before with Richard Schwab, the Will County marbles champion who received tickets to the game from The Herald-News.

But Ruth, who’d retired with the Boston Braves in 1935, was well-covered in the sports section the next day. He arrived with former Cubs players James “Hippo” Vaughn and Bob O’Farrell and “spent the first two innings pacing up and down near the St. Joe’s bench in an old brown blanket [before he] shook off the covering and revealed a New York Yankees uniform,” the paper reported.

About 1,000 shivering fans endured temperatures in the 40s to watch while members of the St. Joe’s team “scampered to the outfield to shag the Babe’s flies.”

“Ruth stepped into the batter’s box, gripped the war club firmly and began blasting out drives from O’Farrell, a couple over the center field fence,” the paper reported. “He put on a great show.”

Let’s see what Joliet baseball does this year.