This current biography will stand as the standard Babe Ruth bio for our time. Lots of detail. Lots of anecdotes. The outline of the man's life.
I gather it was Casey Stengel who called Ruth "The Big Fella." I further gather that George Herman Ruth, Jr. had girth all his life. Thick around the middle always with spindly legs. And he could swing a 54 oz. baseball bat like a ruler. Yes, he could do that like maybe no one else in baseball history. Ruth said there were slap hitters and swingers. He held the bat at the bottom and swing hard every time. He connected a lot and he missed a lot. He had that magical crack of the bat that baseball purists like to talk about. He was the first player to swing to openly swing for the fences. When he became an everyday player after starting as the best left-handed pitcher in the American League in his time with the Red Sox, it was believed that swinging for homers was futile because it would only lead to catchable fly balls to the outfield. But not if you hit the ball far enough like the Babe.
Ty Cobb and other players of the time talked about "scientific baseball" which meant to our years station to station baseball. Babe Ruth had his science, but it was the science of the big swing to the fences.
My favorite Babe Ruth story is when in 1929 he was asked about the fact that he made more money than the President of the United States. His classic response: "I had a better year than he did." Indeed, President Hoover.
Ruth never made a dime off of the Baby Ruth candy bar even though everyone knew in the 1920's that the product was produced by the Curtiss Candy Company from his popularity. Curtiss maintained the fiction that the name came from the granddaughter of former President Grover Cleveland. Years of legal wrangling and the laws of the time yielded nothing for the baseball player whose popularity made possible the popularity of the Baby Ruth candy bar.
Babe Ruth's estate is healthy today, but you are not adding to it as you enjoy your Baby Ruth candy bar. Life is not always fair, huh?
Much was made of the racial animus that Hank Aaron faced when he was chasing Babe Ruth's 714 career homerun total in 1974 and '75. A black man superseding a white man in one of baseball's most cherished records. Aaron thought that Ruth never had to face this kind of racial hate. But actually, he did.
Many people thought that Ruth had a mixed racial heritage, that he was a mulatto. That his legal father was not his biological father. The truth will never be known, not likely to be true, but the truth that is known is that Ruth faced racial taunting all of his life with the insinuation that he was half black.
Yankee management frequently called him that "big baboon." Southern cracker Ty Cobb rode him mercilessly. The Babe once charged into the locker room of the NY Giants and John McGraw to attack a Giant player who had yelled racial epithets throughout a just concluded game. Ruth was thought to be "not very bright," and this was the reason.
Eventually Ruth was run out of the game, and this was one of the reasons. Jane Leavy's biography is Americana.
The 20's were the Golden Age of newspapering. P. 76
The Ruth personality as well as the wallop. P 100
Racial comments followed The Babe all of his life. P. 172
The story of the "The Shot" in the 1932 Series. There was a man heckling Ruth from centerfield. Did he point to here he would hit the homer or not? We will never know for sure what happened. P. 173-75
Ruth vs. the Curtiss Candy Company. P. 228
The original House That Ruth Built was a magnificent thing. P. 250-52
Babe Ruth was not the first person who was treated shabbily by his employer when he retired (the NY Yankees). He was not the first person who created a persona for himself and paid for it eventually (he wanted to manage but was never given the chance). He was not the first person to create a sensation wherever he went. By the end of his life battling cancer this became a burden. He was not the first on many things, but he was one of the most famous
The Yankees had him followed. P. 255
The Ruth psyche. P. 302-03
He chafed at every constraint. P. 369
A fella's gotta entertain. P. 370
By 1927 Ruth had become an economic force in the country. P. 388
When the crash came in 1929 the King of Clout did not take a hit due to good investing. P. 395
By the end of the 1933 season the Yankees had had enough of Babe Ruth. P. 408
After the '34 season the Yankees released him.
The author doesn't provide any useful info on the breech between Ruth and Gehrig.
Likewise she shorts the Red Sox years.
Much space is devoted to his financial advisor Christ Walsh. Apparently Walsh did well investing for the Babe.
Much space on "barnstorming" which was fashionable during the offseason. Unimaginable today.
Details on how Ruth mastered the homer stroke, adjusting his feet in the batter's box, ahead of his time before the age of video and modern-day technology which players have today. He really was that good.
Details on the Yankee purchase of Ruth from a desperate Red Sox owner. The baseball deal of all time. The Yankees made out like bandits over the many years of Ruth dominance of the country's baseball scene. Boy oh, boy!
The Babe was married twice with one child named Dorothy. He was not a good father or husband.
The cancer that killed him at 53 in 1948 was vicious and quick-acting.
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