The Babe Ruth Biography

Leigh Montville – The Big Bam

This is the definitive biography of Babe Ruth for our time.

Little is known of the George Herman Ruth, Jr.’s early years. The main thing is that his home life must not have been good, and he was taken to live in the St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys at the age of 7. Why did his parents take him to a place for orphans and wayward boys? According to this book, we don’t know.
Luckily for the Babe, he was sent to a place where sports was big. He had ample opportunity to play baseball, and play and play and play he did.

Early in life at this school for boys, his racial heritage was questioned. Did Babe Ruth have a black heritage? Was he a black man? This is the biggest revelation in this book. I had no idea this was an issue in his life. The question, if it is a legitimate question, has never been answered conclusively.

The author uses the word “fog” where little is known about Ruth’s life. His life, particularly his early life, is like a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces missing. Those missing pieces will likely always be missing. The fog rolls in at many points in Ruth’s life.

He started as a pitcher, was a good pitcher, played some outfield for the Red Sox, but when he was traded to the Yankees in 1920 in the most famous baseball trade in history (for the Red Sox “The Curse of the Bambino), he became a full-time right fielder.

There was his glorious career with the Yankees. He was a great baseball player, maybe the best to ever play the game, certainly the most famous baseball player of all time. Yet he was less than a sterling human being. He was hyperactive. According to this book, he had to be active all the time. He couldn’t sit still. He was not a good husband and father. He was estranged from his wife Helen when she perished in a fire in 1929. He was rarely around his daughter Dorothy. He married a second time to a lady named Claire, to whom he was married when he died in 1948. He was much closer to Claire’s daughter than his own natural daughter. Great baseball player no doubt; less than a great human being.
After he retired from baseball after the 1935 season, Ruth tried his best to get a managing job. He was briefly the first base coach of the Dodgers, but a managerial job never came his way. Nobody in baseball wanted to hire the great Babe Ruth as manager. Was he not smart enough? Was he not stable enough? Was it racial? I have never heard this one before.

He was considered a big kid, a spoiled kid all of his life. Because he was Babe Ruth, he played by his own rules and got away with it. At least he was open with his money unlike Joe DiMaggio. Yes, he was a spoiled brat but more likeable than Joe D. P. 120

All of his life there were questions about his racial heritage. Before reading this book, I had no idea this was the case. This suspicion might have kept him from getting a managerial job, for it is obvious he would have taken whatever was offered him.

“The question of race would linger. Was the Babe, by legal definition, a black man? He had the bad words for as long as he played. He had been handed the wrongful stereotype that would be attached to the black athlete---the natural talent, abilities transmitted by the touch of God, not acquired through industry and intelligence. He never had a chance to manage a team. So many of the pieces fit. If not a black man, he had been touched by the prejudices against the black man.
The truth? The fog settled in for one last time.” P. 365
He did not work a regular job after retiring from baseball. He played a lot of golf, hunted, fished, and even took up bowling!

Babe Ruth died of cancer on August 16, 1948, age 53, passing away in his sleep. He died on the same day as Elvis Presley.

“The fascination with career and life continues. He is a bombastic, sloppy hero from our bombastic, sloppy history, origins undetermined, a folk tale of American success. His moon face is as recognizable today as it was when he stared out at Tom Zachary on a certain September afternoon in 1927.” P. 367