Base­ball in Octo­ber is often marked by pre­mier teams, clutch plays, and mem­o­rable moments. One such moment came dur­ing Game Four of the 1926 World Series. In that game on Wednes­day, Octo­ber 6^th, the St. Louis Car­di­nals hosted the New York Yan­kees and their great player Babe Ruth. Ruth would shine for the Yan­kees, hit­ting three home runs in a 10–5 vic­tory. These home runs would be sig­nif­i­cant in the base­ball world, but for one lit­tle boy, they appeared to be life-saving.

In 1926 Johnny Sylvester was an 11 year-old die hard Yan­kee fan liv­ing in Essex Fells, New Jer­sey. Dur­ing the sum­mer he was involved in a horse­back rid­ing acci­dent in which he fell off his horse. The horse then kicked him in the head, leav­ing Sylvester with a bad infec­tion that began to spread rapidly. Doc­tors feared he would not sur­vive. While it is true that Sylvester was sick, there is some dis­agree­ment in the his­tor­i­cal record as to how crit­i­cally ill he actu­ally was. Some think he had blood poi­son­ing or a sinus con­di­tion or a back problem.

Soon telegrams reached the Yan­kees in St. Louis, noti­fy­ing them of young Sylvester’s con­di­tion. There is some dis­crep­ancy in who ini­ti­ated the contact—Sylvester him­self or his father or uncle—but the end result was pos­i­tive. Ruth responded by send­ing back two auto­graphed balls (one from the Yan­kees, and one from the Car­di­nals). He also included a note to Johnny: “I’ll knock a homer for you on Wednesday.”

On Wednes­day, Octo­ber 6^th, Ruth hit three home runs, ensur­ing a Yan­kee vic­tory. Remark­ably, Sylvester’s con­di­tion improved greatly after the game. He even­tu­ally made a com­plete turn­around, grad­u­ated from Prince­ton in 1937, served in the Navy dur­ing World War II, and was a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man in Long Island City, New York.

While mem­o­rable and inspir­ing for Sylvester, when a year later Ruth was asked about the event, he report­edly said, “Who the hell is Johnny Sylvester?” The spe­cial home run mes­sage was not Sylvester’s last con­tact with Ruth. Sylvester vis­ited Ruth at the open­ing game of the 1929 sea­son at Yan­kee Sta­dium. And, while Ruth was in his declin­ing years, Sylvester vis­ited him at Ruth’s New York apartment.

A pos­si­bly apoc­ryphal story about the Sylvester-Ruth con­nec­tion revolves around the tra­di­tion of older classes car­ry­ing signs at P-rade. Though there is no proof of it extant in the Archives, Sylvester allegedly once car­ried a sign that read “Who the hell is Babe Ruth?” pay­ing homage to the great slugger’s for­get­ful remark and Sylvester’s mem­o­rable con­nec­tion to him.