THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, February 6, 1995               TAG: 9502060133
SECTION: SPORTS                   PAGE: C2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   45 lines

NAGOURNEY RECALLS SITTING ON BABE'S LAP

It was a little past midnight in Long Beach, Long Island, a summer evening more than 50 years ago. Ed Nagourney guesses he was 10, maybe 12. Whatever, he was sound asleep when his father rousted him from bed. There was someone he needed to meet, his father said.

They hustled down the street to Redney's, an outdoor ice cream parlor where a crowd had gathered around a man at a table. On the table were water glasses filled to various heights, and the man was holding court, tinkling out tunes on the glasses with a pair of spoons.

Nagourney wiggled close enough to shake the man's hand. Suddenly the hand, then the other, reached out to Nagourney, and the boy was pulled up onto the man's lap.

Babe Ruth's lap.

``He sat me on his knee,'' recalled Nagourney, 64, the director of sales for the Norfolk Tides. ``What hit me was a tremendous odor of beer. Stale beer. And he was smoking a cigar that looked like it was two feet long.''

They were fitting indulgences, perhaps, for Ruth, even though he was recovering from a heart attack at the time. His career had ended in 1935, at the age of 40.

``I said to him, `Mr. Ruth, how far can you hit a baseball?' And he said, `Son, I can hit a baseball as far as you can see,' '' Nagourney said. ``And then I said, `How do you learn to hit a baseball that far?' I remember it like last night. I can feel the smoke coming into my face right now. And he says to me, `Remember something. Don't you ever smoke and don't you ever drink.' ''

Nagourney laughed softly. Of all his baseball memories - and Nagourney later was a clubhouse boy for the New York Giants - his moment with Ruth remains among the most indelible.

``I've never smoked and I've never drank to this day,'' Nagourney said. ``But I also never learned to hit a ball that far, either.'' ILLUSTRATION: Ed Nagourney, 64, currently serves as the director of sales for

the Norfolk Tides.

by CNB