Ball May Be Ticket To The Hall Family Wants Pepper Martin On Roster Of Baseball Immortals

Babe Ruth would have turned 100 years old early this month.

The baseball, with “Babe Ruth” clearly scrawled on its yellow-brown splotched surface, just turned 62.

It’s the home-run ball that left Ruth’s bat in the first All-Star game in 1933, according to Hayden, Idaho, resident Allen Cherry.

The St. Louis Cardinals’ Pepper Martin, who played on the National League team opposite Ruth’s A.L. squad, paid $20 to have the ball fetched from a fan at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

“He just wanted it because he’d gotten to know Babe and he was a big fan of Babe,” said Cherry, who is married to one of Pepper’s daughters, Alyne.

Cherry, not surprisingly, is a big fan of Pepper Martin. He believes Martin should be in the Hall of Fame.

Martin has impressive credentials. A lifetime .298 hitter with 146 stolen bases, Martin’s .418 average in World Series games is tops all time.

Cherry said he may sell the Ruth-signed ball - he’s been offered $7,000, but he believes it’s worth as much as $15,000 - and use some of the money to initiate a campaign to get Martin into the Hall of Fame.

The ball, which includes the signatures of Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx and others, is on display at American Baseball Cards in Spokane. Martin, whose widow, Ruby, lives in McAlester, Okla., collected 21 balls, leaving seven to each of his three daughters following his death in 1965. The daughters drew straws to determine who received the Ruth ball.

Cherry is trying to convince the Hall’s veterans committee, which can elect players passed over during normal balloting, of Martin’s merits. “We’ve already got a couple on our side,” said Cherry, noting that extensive work remains.

Cherry’s chore probably would be easier had more members of the committee seen Martin play.

The stocky Martin grew up in Oklahoma City. In the major leagues, he became known for timely hitting and head-first slides.

The Cardinals’ legendary Gas House Gang, which won Series titles in 1931 and 1934, was saturated with characters - Dizzy and Paul Dean, and Leo “The Lip” Durocher. Martin, nicknamed “The “Wild Horse of the Osage” because had he played on a Native American football team called the Osage Indians, fit right in.

According to an old newspaper clipping, Martin “fielded ground balls off his thick chest, pinned them like a cowhand rassling wild bulls, and threw to first like a man killing ducks.”

Martin once told Dizzy Dean, who was getting drilled by a series of comebackers off the bat of Bill Terry, “You’re not playing him deep enough.”

The Gas House Gang was brash. Trailing Detroit 3-2 in the 1934 World Series, Martin shrugged: “It’s in the bag.” And the Cards won the next two games.

The Gas Housers were basically fun-loving kids at heart. Dean told famed sportswriter Grantland Rice he wanted to pitch every game of the ‘34 Series. Rice said “You can’t win four straight, Dizzy.” Dean replied, “Maybe not, but I sure can win four outta five.”

Martin once confided to a writer that he wanted to have a ball made out of a pie crust.

“Let’s say the other team gets the tying run on third. The pitcher throws the regular ball to you. You switch balls and throw the pie-crust ball back to the pitcher. The runner steps off third and you tag him out. Meanwhile, the pitcher destroys the evidence. He eats the pie crust. I know Dizzy could have done it easy.”

Players from that era weren’t concerned about going on strike or landing high-salary contracts, Cherry said. “Pepper only made $4,600 (in 1931). When they won the Series he got another $4,000.”

Martin “rode the rails” to get to spring training in Florida one year, hopping freight trains as they pulled away from the station. The Cardinals had given him travel money, but he decided to give it to his mother. By the time he arrived, Martin was so grungy his manager didn’t recognize him.

After his playing days, Martin became a manager, but he always stayed close to his Oklahoma City ranch. Cherry recalls joining Martin on a private plane and going to a World Series game in 1964.

Martin also played in an old-timers game that year. When he got on base, fans, remembering his belly-flop slides, started chanting, `steal, steal, steal.’ He obliged.

“He was so sore, he could hardly walk for a week,” Cherry said.

Alyne Cherry, who plans to sell real estate in Coeur d’Alene, recalled Martin as the “perfect father.” Martin didn’t seem like a superstar because his personality never changed, she said.

Cherry is hoping family friend Joe Garagiola, a former Cardinals catcher and longtime baseball announcer, will help convince the veterans committee that Martin has a Hall of Fame resume.

When Garagiola and Yogi Berra were youngsters in St. Louis, Martin often unlocked the fence at Sportsmans Park to let them into Cardinals games.

Regardless of the outcome of his Martin campaign, Cherry said he’s “had a ball” poring over Martin’s memorabilia, most of which, including the Ruth-signed ball, was in a trunk at Ruby Martin’s house.

“Pepper was so proud of that ball,” Cherry said. “He just said Babe was a good guy.”

Ruth probably said the same of Martin.