Cape Girardeau resident remembers when Babe Ruth baseball first came to town

With the arrival of the Babe Ruth World Series, a Cape Girardeau native is reminded of the youth league's early days in his hometown.

Lewis Bock, 81, grew up across the street from Capaha Park, and playing baseball was a big part of his childhood. He said he remembers the day his father, Edgar Bock, bought him a full catcher's outfit.

"I was 6 or 7 years old," Lewis Bock said. "My dad said, 'I'm gonna teach you to play a position that nobody wants to play, but it's probably the best position on the team because you're in the game all the time,' and he was right."

Bock said his father was one of the "main movers and shapers" who brought the Babe Ruth league to Cape Girardeau in the mid-1950s.

The league was started in 1951 by a group of men in New Jersey led by Marius Bonacci who, according to the Babe Ruth League Inc. website, www.baberuthleague.org, believed the future of its community depended on the proper development of the young people. The group named its new baseball program after George Herman "Babe" Ruth.

Lewis Bock holds a picture of himself at 10 years old in 1952.Danny Walter

Lewis Bock holds a picture of himself at 10 years old in 1952.Danny Walter

In its first years, the league had 10 teams of boys between 13 and 15 years of age. Since then, the league has expanded to a combined size of well more than 1 million players on more than 60,000 teams of baseball and softball leagues for both male and females from 4 to 18 years old.

Bock said he joined the Cape Girardeau Babe Ruth team when he was 13 years old and, of course, he played catcher.

"I probably was the fastest catcher and the smallest catcher in Southeast Missouri," Bock said. "I could run, so I ended up playing some center field later on in the Connie Mack League."

In 1958, when he was 16 years old, Bock got the opportunity to attend the Babe Ruth World Series in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His father was the league's Midwest Plains regional director and because the team from Joplin, Missouri, made it into the World Series after beating Cape Girardeau in the state tournament, he was able to arrange the trip.

Bock recalled Joplin was knocked out of the series early, but said it was "certainly good baseball and quite an experience!"

In keeping with the intentions of the league's founders, Bock said playing Babe Ruth baseball taught him about discipline and teamwork. He said playing baseball during the maturing process that begins at that age lends itself to understanding those values.

"The discipline to always keep your mind on what you were doing and the camaraderie of being on a team and realizing that you were one of nine people, we all had to pay attention to what we were doing, or we might not win a game," Bock said.

He said those lessons helped develop him during his time at Southeast Missouri State University where he was the sports editor of the student newspaper, the Capaha Arrow, and later when he graduated in 1963 with a degree in marketing with minors in English literature and journalism.

"The same thing in my 33-year career with the Allstate Insurance Co.," Bock said. "Those Babe Ruth years built me up, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world."

Bock said, while he no longer lives just across the street, he will definitely be catching a few games of the World Series at Capaha Field and "harkening back to those early days of my childhood."

The Babe Ruth World Series for 2023, featuring 16- to 18-year-old players, began Monday, Aug. 14, and runs through Saturday, Aug. 20, at Cape Girardeau's Capaha Field.