It’s that boyish, exuberant personality of his, together with extraordinary batting ability, that has made him such a grand newspaper figure and the idol of the public. The big man’s memory for names is not of the best, so he covers up by calling everybody “Butch.” You come to expect it and like it. We were to hear much of that “Hiya, Butch” the next few days. Volleys of greetings crackled from all sides.
His bulky shoulders towered above the swirling mob, a wide grin lighted his face, and perspiration streamed from him like water from a sluiced deck. He stopped traffic, and wherever he went the crowds went. Bill Lovitt, owner of the camp where we were hunting, who met him at the steamer dock in Yarmouth, told me about it. I know because I was one of the three hunters with him in Nova Scotia last fall. Today he puts on just as great a show, even though his audience may consist of only three hunters and two guides, and the playing field is a wide stretch of Nova Scotian woods. He always put on a great show for the fans. Three years out of baseball, the big man has lost nothing of his appeal as a public idol. He has seized the popular imagination and held it as has no other athlete of our time save, perhaps, Jack Dempsey. As the Battering Bambino of the New York Yankees, he took over the public, lock, stock, and barrel. He’s always been that way ever since he broke into big-time baseball as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox, years and years ago. WHEN THE BABE’ S in the woods, he’s the biggest thing there, and the moose, deer, and bears are no longer the star performers.
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