Any time I see a familiar name with something unexpected attached to it, I stop and dig. So when I saw Babe Ruth was arrested today, I started digging.

There was no shortage of coverage on this one over the course of the next two days.

June 11th, 1926. Six o'clock in the morning. Babe Ruth and a Detroit real estate dealer named Paddy Sexton drive thirty miles outside Detroit to Island Lake in Livingston County. They have a bet on who can catch the most fish in one hour. A group of friends comes along.

Twenty minutes in, a deputy game warden appears. The lake is closed for fishing until June 16th. Five days away.

Here is where the papers start telling slightly different stories.

The Salt Lake Telegram says Ruth was arrested. The Kansas City Post says the score was tied at twelve fish apiece when the warden showed up. The Kalamazoo Gazette says they hadn't caught as much as one fish. The Times Standard says Ruth was released when he pleaded ignorance of the law. Ruth himself told reporters he was never arrested at all. "I was only warned off the premises," he explained. The papers ran both versions without apparent concern for the contradiction.

What everyone agrees on: the whole party was taken before a justice of the peace, the justice was a baseball fan, and he released Ruth in time for the afternoon game at Navin Field.

A warrant was later issued by Prosecuting Attorney Hiram H. Smith of Livingston County. Deputy Sheriff James Morgan admitted he had not served it and told a reporter not to worry about it. Justice Calbe Collett confirmed the warrant existed and said it would be on file waiting when Ruth returned to Detroit later in the season.

Whether it was ever served, whether Ruth ever appeared in court, whether the fine of not less than $10 and not more than $100 was ever paid — I couldn’t find any record of it. The deputy sheriff had suggested not worrying about it. Apparently nobody did.

This was not Babe Ruth's only encounter with legal authorities in 1926. Not even close.

In April, Massachusetts authorities swore out warrants charging that Ruth didn't pay his state income tax in 1923 and 1924. The Washington Times put his photo under the headline: Tax Dodger?

That same summer he appeared in a New York traffic court for driving 35 miles an hour on Riverside Drive. He pleaded guilty and admitted he'd been fined $100 for the same offense two years earlier. Traffic records dissolve after one year, so Magistrate Glatzmayer — who looked up from his bench to see, in the paper's words, "a bronzed giant with a puckered brow" — fined him $25 as a first offender. The crowd outside cheered as he walked away.

Fishing. Taxes. Speeding. All in one year.

And through all of it, the Yankees were having one of the greatest seasons in baseball history. And Ruth was reviving himself and his image after a down year in 1925 (believe it or not with these stories).

See you tomorrow.

— Chris

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