9-24-25: Irrepressible Babe wins it with walk-off slam in 10th

Babe Ruth, amid his worst season yet as a New York Yankee, hit the first walk-off grand slam homer of his career to give the Yankees a 6-5 victory in 10 innings over the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 24, 1925.

By Phil Ellenbecker 
  The 1925 baseball season was a big bummer for "The Big Bam."
  It was the year of "The Bellyache Heard Around the World," as it became known, or more sordid health problems for Babe Ruth. That depends on which version of the truth you believe for the reason he missed the first 75 games of the season and hit only 25 homers, his lowest mark since he'd become a regular position player for the Boston Red Sox in 1919. His homers were far off the average of 47 a season he'd hit since joining the New York Yankees in 1920.
  "Newspaper reporters called what Ruth had 'a belly ache' caused by eating too many hot dogs and 'chugging too many sodas,'” Dan Holmes wrote in an article for baseballegg.com. "But Ruth was more likely suffering from a venereal disease and/or alcohol poisoning."
  Likewise, 1925 was a downer of a season overall for the Yankees, who'd won American League pennants in 1921 through 1923 and finished second in '24. This year they'd finish seventh with a 69-85 record, their lowest finish since 1914 and least number of wins since 1918.
  Such had the enthusiasm for the Yankees and "The Bambino" waned that only 1,000 showed up at "The House That Ruth Built," Yankee Stadium, on the Thursday afternoon of Sept. 24.
  But that afternoon showed that while you could hold The Babe down, you could never count him out.
  Ruth came up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning and unloaded a grand slam, his 21st homer of the season, lifting the Yankees to a 6-5 victory in 10 innings over the Chicago White Sox.
  Ruth's walk-off clout into the right-field bleachers off Sarge Connally wiped out a 5-2 lead the ChiSox had built in the top half of the 10th. Until then the game had been a taut pitcher's duel between the Yankees' Ben Shields and Chicago Hall of Famer Red Faber.
  Shields, almost quite literally, knocked out Faber, with the score tied 2-2, by hitting him when Faber came up to bat in the 10th “with such a cruel swat on the left elbow that the red-haired spitballer had to leave the game," The New York Times reported. While the White Sox went on to score three runs, Faber's absence when the Yankees came to bat opened the door to New York's winning rally.
  Wally Pipp, who'd infamously ceded his first base job to "Iron Man" Lou Gehrig this season, set things in motion when he drew a walk pinch hitting for Shields after Connally, who'd relieved Faber at the start of the inning, got Pee-Wee Wanninger to ground out. Earle Combs and Mark Koenig followed with consecutive singles, each to left field, to load the bases.
  Ruth looked at two pitches from Connally for an 0-2 count, then sent a foul ball high and into the stands. Another errant pitch brought the count to 3-1. Next came a chest-high fastball, which Ruth made disappear as “the ball sailed away to parts remote,” the Chicago Tribune reported. The crowd stormed the field and encroached the baselines, forcing Ruth to “fight his way through a cheering mob before he touched the plate and won the game," The Times reported.
  It was the sixth of Ruth's 16 career grand slams, the seventh game he had won for the Yankees with a walk-off home run and his first walk-off grand slam, according to an article by Mike Huber for the Society for American Baseball Research's Games Project.
  While the Yankees won with one big Babe wallop, the White Sox went station-to-station to put themselves in winning position in the top of the 10th.
  Shields hit Faber after he'd issued a leadoff walk to Ray Schalk. Leadoff hitter Johnny Mostil singled in Schalk, and Dicky Kerr, the pitcher who'd pinch run for Faber, went to third. Roy Elsh scratched out an infield single to score Kerr and make it 4-2. Bill Barrett's ground out to the catcher moved Mostil to third and Elsh to second. Shields then squeezed out of the inning by getting Earl Sheely and Bibb Falk to ground out, but Sheely drove in Mostil when he went out to Koenig at shortstop.

Ben Shields, in his first major league start, got the victory when the New York Yankees defeated the Chicago White Sox 6-5 in 10 innings on Sept. 24, 1925. Shields had given up three runs in the top half of the 10th but was bailed out by Babe Ruth's grand slam homer.

  Second-year man Shields, a 22-year-old left-hander, earned his first major-league win in his first start in the majors. He'd faced the White Sox two days earlier, after having been called up from Richmond of the Class B Virginia League, pitching the ninth and allowing no runs. Starting and finishing this one, he had a complete-game seven-hitter, allowing five runs, all earned, walking four and striking out three.
  (Shields seemed to have a knack for pitching in good luck when he figured in the decision. He finished this season with a 3-0 record and 4.88 ERA. He vanished from the big leagues until reappearing in 1930 and 1931, going 1-0 in seven appearances. Final four-year major league ledger: 4-0, 8.27 ERA.)
 Connally, who'd been used as a long reliever by player-manager Eddie Collins much of the season, fell to 5-7 after allowing four runs, all earned, in a third of an inning.
 Faber, who came into the game with a 12-11 record, allowed eight hits and two runs, one earned, with no walks and one strikeout in his nine-inning no-decision. He'd finish the season at 12-11 with a 3.78 ERA.
  Ruth had what might have been the game winner in regulation time, but on his double to center with two out in the sixth, Mostil combined with second baseman Barrett on a relay to Schalk to throw out Combs attempting to score from second.
  That play kept the score at 2-1 after the White Sox had broken up Shields' shutout with doubles by Elsh and Sheely in their half of the sixth. Chicago tied it in the seventh when Willie Kamm led off with a triple and scored on Davis' ground out to second.
  A leadoff triple in the second by Bob Meusel led to the game's first run, as Gehrig followed with a sacrifice fly to center. Combs manufactured another run the next inning, with a lot of help from the White Sox. After reaching on a fielder's choice, he stole second, drew a throwing error by Schalk to get to third, and raced home when Mostil threw wildly to Kamm at third.
  (Schalk's throwing error was uncharacteristic. Elected to the Hall of Fame largely for his defense {.253 career batting average}, he would league American League catchers this year by throwing out 71.8 percent of the runners trying to steal on him. Five times he led the league's backstops in fielding percentage.)

Bob Meusel's 4-for-4 day at the plate was overshadowed by Babe Ruth's walk-off grand slam homer as the New York Yankees defeated the Chicago White Sox 6-5 in 10 innings on Sept. 24, 1925. Meusel was on deck when Ruth won the game.

  By bringing a sudden end to the game, Ruth prevented Meusel from adding to his hitting heroics. Meusel, the Yankees' cleanup hitter, was on deck and had been 4-for-4 on the day when Ruth struck his decisive blow.
  Kamm, a shining light for the White Sox in their post "Black Sox" days and noted as one of the greatest defensive third basemen of all time, led the Chicago offense this day, going 2-for-2.

Before and after

  As noted before, 1925 was an outlier for the Yankees in this decade. After their Sept. 24 win they were 66-82 and seventh in the AL, 30 1/2 games behind first-place Washington, and they finished 69-85, in seventh and 28 1/2 out of first.
  It was defininely a year of transition. Besides having to play much of the year without Ruth, they were also breaking in Gehrig and Combs.
  But those three combined with rookie second baseman Tony Lazzeri and Koenig, newly installed as the regular shortstop, to help the Yankees reclaim the pennant in 1926 through 1928, winning the World Series in '27 and '28.
  Rush, Meusel and third baseman Joe Dugan were the only position player regulars who bridged their 1921-23 pennants and the ones in 1926-28.
  As for the 1925 White Sox, they were long gone from their days of glory and disgrace. Those included winning a World Series in 1917 and losing one in 1919 before it was discovered, one year later as they were chasing another pennant, that eight players had conspired to throw the '19 Series, tagging that team forever as the "Black Sox."
  The eight players implicated were immediately banned from baseball, and the White Sox lost out on the pennant, then subsequently became a perennial bottom feeder in the AL. They stood at 74-75 and in fifth place in the AL after their Sept. 24, 1925, loss and finished at 79-75 and in fifth. That was quite a significant improvement from 66-87 and eighth the year before, but it would be until 1936 that they finished in the upper division again and 1959 before they won another pennant.
  Faber, Kerr, Schalk and Collins, nearing the end of his immortal Hall of Fame career at second base, were the only holdovers in 1925 from their 1917-20 powerhouses.
  Kerr, who'd been a hero amid the disgrace with two wins in the 1919 World Series, had just made his reappearance with the White Sox in August since he'd been suspended in 1921 over salary squabbles he had with the team. But soon his four-year major league career was over. He made his second-to-last appearance in a major league game when he pinch ran Sept. 24. He pitched a final game Oct. 4, then was released and played out his career in the minor leagues.
  Later Kerr became known, when he was a minor league manager, as a mentor to Stan Musial. Musial even named a son after him.

Sources:

Play-by-play:https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1925/B09240NYA1925.htm  and  https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/september-24-1925-babe-ruth-beats-white-sox-extra-inning-walkoff-grand-slam
Ruth's off-the-field woes: http://baseballegg.com/2012/11/29/babe-ruth-and-baseballs-most-famous-bellyache/
Ruth's home run log: http://baseball-reference.com:8080/players/event_hr.cgi?id=ruthba01&t=b 
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.