Nat Fein Prints

June 13, 1948, was an overcast day in the Bronx. The gray skies above Yankee Stadium reflected the great sadness felt by the huge crowd gathered inside the legendary ballpark. Babe Ruth; gravely ill with the cancer that would strike him down in 2 months; stood for one last time on the field as the Yankees honored him with a ceremony retiring his uniform number. Out of all the photographers present on that memorable day, just one man captured the essence of the event in a single image. Nat Fein of the New York Herald Tribune knelt behind Ruth, aimed his trusty Speed Graphic camera and captured a priceless moment in American sports history. “Babe Ruth Bows Out” ran on the front page the next day and later became the first sports photograph to earn a Pulitzer Prize. Fein was asked why he broke a fundamental rule of photography and took the shot without showing Ruth’s face. “The retiring of No. 3 was the story. You didn’t need to see the Babe’s face to recognize him. You’d recognize his great hulk and spindly legs anyplace. No one else had that particular angle, so it was a little something different.”

Nat Fein was most certainly a man with “a little something different.” The 85-year old dynamo was still doing his own darkroom work up until his sudden death in 2001. Even into his later years, Nat displayed the same youthful passion and enthusiasm he showed when starting his career at the New York Herald Tribune in 1933. During his over 30 years with the Tribune, Nat documented all aspects of life in New York City in beautiful black and white. Fein also photographed many of the leading figures of the 20th century . . . Harry Truman, Bobby Kennedy, Douglas MacArthur, Mickey Mantle and numerous others. He seems to have a wonderful story for each picture. “I had to cover Albert Einstein one time,” he recalled, “and I really wanted to get something different. It was income tax time and I had a tax form in my pocket, and I thought it would be really great to have a picture of Einstein figuring out his taxes. Well, I asked him to hold the form for me, but he got very angry about the whole thing and I was forced to leave the premises.”