Time - 100 Photographs - The Most Influential Images of All Time - USA (2019)

(Antfer) #1

100 PHOTOGRAPHS 25


He was the greatest ballplayer of them all, the towering
Sultan of Swat. But by 1948, Babe Ruth had been out of the
game for more than a decade and was struggling with ter-
minal cancer. So when the beloved Bambino stood before
a massive crowd on June 13 to help celebrate the silver an-
niversary of Yankee Stadium—known to all in attendance
as the House That Ruth Built—and to retire his No. 3, it
was clear this was a final public goodbye.
Nat Fein of the New York He ra l d Tr i b u n e was one of
dozens of photographers staked out along the first-base
line. But as the sound of “Auld Lang Syne” filled the
stadium, Fein “got a feeling” and walked behind Ruth,
where he saw the proud ballplayer leaning on a bat, his
thin legs hinting at the toll the disease had wreaked on
his body. From that spot, Fein captured the almost mythic
role that athletes play in our lives—even at their weakest,
they loom large. Two months later Ruth was dead, and
Fein went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his picture. It was
the first one awarded to a sports photographer, giving crit-
ical legitimacy to a form other than hard-news reportage.


THE BABE BOWS OUT Nat Fein, 1948
Free download pdf