George Herman “Babe” Ruth died on August 16, 1948, and the next day, Grantland Rice (1880–1954) published a small elegy in The New York Sun with the title “Game Called.” Sometime in the 1950s, Grant ...

Or in other words, a guilty conscience has a surprising way of manifesting itself through aggression and claims to victimhood. Grass does indeed begin to paint himself as a victim in his poem.