The 1984 one-man play The Babe starring Max Gail opened on Broadway on May 17, 1984….as the 1st Act is seen in the video herewith…..and the play closed after 5 performances on May 20th the same year…..so, maybe it wasn’t the play or the acting in such a short life as 3 days….for just maybe it was because a half century had passed since the King of Swat was driving the ball out of Yankees Stadium and ballparks all over the Major League…..or maybe it is because the story of the man, or the Broadway play or the movie The Babe (1992), played by John Goodman, and also not a box office success….but maybe the fact that all of the subject material regarding Babe Ruth had been documented nationally many times over…..and there simply wasn’t any new story or twist to a story to be told?!?
It is interesting to us at ImaSportsphile that the Broadway play The Babe couldn’t stay open at least a month or two…..I mean, up until 1984….New York City had never had a bigger hero than Babe Ruth…..nobody even compared…..and actor Max Gail had just ended 7 years and 170 episodes of television success as Detective “Wojo” on the popular sitcom Barney Miller….whose run on television ran from 1974 to 1982…..so, you’d think New Yorkers would have supported the play more than they did…..cuz as seen in Act 1…..it’s worth the watch…..and it tells a lot about the years of being raised by his Dad….cuz for us, we just sit back and daydream that Babe Ruth is there on stage talking to us…..and it is “pure joy” for us Sportsphiles.
