They sniffed, pawed, drank, and sometimes met on Thursday evenings in honor of the day the Babe boldly came to the Lilac City and scored during an exhibition baseball game.

That shocking visit from George Herman “Babe” Ruth and fellow New York Yankees outfielder Bob Muesel took place exactly 100 years ago on Thursday.

The carnage of releasing old baseballs into their watery graves in the Spokane River began 17 years ago with the idea of ​​baseball junkie Dave Jackson, a founding board member of Hoopfest and a teacher at Lewis and Clark High School.

Jackson said he learned of Ruth's visit in 1924 when he read about it in a book by the late Tony Bamonte.

Jackson said he remembers the old Natatorium Park as a child in the 1960s before it was demolished. The Sans Souci West mobile home park is located here.

Originally called Twickenham Park, officials later renamed it the Natatorium due to the popularity of its indoor pool.

According to History Link, the city's first professional baseball team was founded on the park grounds and the swimming pool opened there in 1893.

As for Ruth's 1924 visit, a clip from The Spokesman-Review showed that Ruth hit three doubles, a single and a home run in his plate appearances at Nat Park.

“Whenever Ruth stood still for a few minutes, he was surrounded by mobs of children streaming from bleachers and fences,” the article said.

Muesel hit a home run in the sixth inning. Ruth hit a long fly ball in the eighth inning that Muesel caught at the fence for an out.

But Ruth got another attack.

“After about six balls had been called, with that easy grace so surprising in a man of his elephantine proportions, he swung a high ball over the center field sign,” the article said. “The crowd stood and cheered. All the children grinned. The light of heaven was in their faces. They had seen Babe Ruth hit a home run.”

A Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter noted that Ruth had eaten wild duck and buffalo during his train visit to Spokane.

“I'm going to get a herd of buffalo when I get back to my farm in New England,” the newspaper quoted Ruth as saying after the game in Spokane. “I should hit a hundred home runs next year on a Buffalo diet.”

Jackson, the LC teacher, said the game had some strange rules, such as Ruth and Muesel having the opportunity to hit in every inning regardless of where they were in the lineup.

“We celebrate this day, the 100th anniversary of the Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat, winning the game in Spokane on Oct. 17, 1924,” Jackson told a gathering of 12 people near the river Thursday night.

Jackson said he became a baseball junkie because of his father, Charlie Jackson, who died earlier this year at age 93. Charlie Jackson played in the minor leagues for the St. Louis Cardinals organization.

“The first photo my parents took of me, they were putting me in my dad’s baseball glove,” Jackson said. “He gave me glove fever.”

As a result, Jackson said he has hundreds of baseball gloves, some of which date back to Ruth's playing days.

“I had a Babe Ruth bat,” Jackson said.

Jackson said he moved into a house on Summit Drive about a year and a half before he learned of Ruth's visit.

“I got my crazy friends together and said, 'Let's celebrate the baby.' We gathered a bunch of baseball and started it 17 years ago,” Jackson said.

While Thursday's goal or event was to hit a baseball across the river, which has only been accomplished a few times, including twice by Jackson's son Adam. But the river had no historical connection to Ruth.

While Ruth hit a home run and reportedly drew several fouls at Nat Park, he did not hit it into or over the Spokane River, Jackson said.

“But Babe said it was the longest home run he had ever hit in his life. So the crowd rushed the field and the game was over in the eighth inning. He would have been right there,” Jackson said, pointing above himself. “People who really knew baseball said he was the greatest of all time.”

Jackson said it is Ruth's lore that he is trying to celebrate.

“He was swinging a huge bat, the drinking, he was kind of overweight,” Jackson said of Ruth. “To do what he did with all the RBIs and all the games played and all the wins … he was probably the most recognizable figure, face or celebrity on planet Earth in 1924.”

On Thursday, several people made hacks and connected in various forms of success.

Jackson's son Adam hit two across the river. One came over the lower brush, landed behind it and splashed into a pond. The other fell into the rocks on the other bank.

Jackson and Terry Schmidt, who is also co-founder of Hoopfest, had participants read a quote from Ruth, sign the wooden bat Schmidt made for the event, take a sip of rye whiskey and then swing to the opposite bank.

Matt Filippini, another teacher at LC, smashed the first ball that reached the other side of the river.

Stan Smith, 75, had several allegations and openly wondered if he would join. “Can I color?” Smith asked for a laugh. Jackson replied, “That might be the best line ever.”

Then Smith hit a ball and sent it three-quarters of the way across the river. “It felt good,” Smith said. “I always used to play ball. I haven’t swung a bat in 50 years.”

On Ruth's visit, Jackson said Ruth and other famous players would rush into cities by train and play exhibitions to raise money. They would pocket some of the money and donate the rest.

During his visit to Spokane, Ruth, himself an orphan, had heard of the Hutton Settlement in the Spokane Valley while he was in Vancouver, British Columbia. The settlement was founded in 1919 by Levi Hutton. The self-sustaining settlement would never turn away a child without a home.

During Ruth's trip, he visited the Hutton Settlement campus. Not only did he play pickup baseball on the sandlot diamond in front of the site, but he also had lunch with the girls who lived in their dorms there.

The baby

According to historical archives, Ruth and Muesel visited Spokane in 1924, just weeks after the season ended on September 27 with a 4-3 loss to the Philadelphia Athletics. The Yankees finished in second place after winning the 1923 World Series.

For the 1924 season, Ruth won the batting title with a .378 average. He also hit the most home runs with 46 and 124 RBIs. He had 200 hits and 141 walks and scored 143 runs in 153 games.

Meusel also had an outstanding year for the Yankees. He batted .325 and had 12 home runs, which was second most for the Yankees behind Ruth.

According to the Yankees' historical archives, Meusel also tied with Ruth for the most RBIs with 124 and added 26 stolen bases to lead the team. That year, Ruth stole nine bases but was caught stealing 13 times.

Muesel later joined Ruth to become part of the so-called “Murderer's Row,” which included Hall of Famer Lou Gehrig. It was the 1927 season that Ruth hit his monumental 60th home run, a record that stood for 34 years until fellow Yankee Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961.

The Yankees achieved 110 wins in 1927, won the American League pennant by 19 games and defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. It remains one of the most dominant baseball team records of all time.

Jackson said most people forget that Ruth started baseball as a pitcher and won three championships with the Boston Red Sox. During his pitching career, Ruth won 94 games and finished his career with a 2.28 ERA.

The Red Sox sold his rights to the Yankees in 1919 in a transaction that was a lost cause for Boston for 86 years and became known as the “Curse of the Bambino.”

Ruth played for 22 years. His final year with the Yankees was 1934 and he retired the next year after a brief stint with the Boston Braves.

In 1946, he was diagnosed with a type of cancer in the throat called nasopharyngeal cancer and died two years later at the age of 53.

In its heyday, Spokane only saw part of the Ruth Dynasty thanks to a train stop in 1924.

“It was almost like he was a cartoon character,” Jackson said of Ruth. “But it was true and legitimate. He’s still a larger than life guy.”