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The Life and Times of Babe Ruth
Doubleday
May 2006
Featuring: Babe Ruth
400 pages ISBN: 0385514379 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Biography
He was the Sultan of Swat. The Caliph of Clout. The Wizard
of Whack. The Bambino. And simply, to his teammates, the Big
Bam. From the award-winning author of the New York Times
bestseller Ted Williams comes the thoroughly original,
definitively ambitious, and exhilaratingly colorful
biography of the largest legend ever to loom in baseball—and
in the history of organized sports. Babe Ruth was more than baseball’s original superstar. For
eighty-five years, he has remained the sport’s reigning
titan. He has been named Athlete of the Century . . . more
than once. But who was this large, loud, enigmatic man? Why
is so little known about his childhood, his private life,
and his inner thoughts? In The Big Bam, Leigh Montville,
whose recent New York Times bestselling biography of Ted
Williams garnered glowing reviews and offered an
exceptionally intimate look at Williams’s life, brings his
trademark touch to this groundbreaking, revelatory portrait
of the Babe. Based on newly discovered documents and interviews—including
pages from Ruth’s personal scrapbooks —The Big Bam traces
Ruth’s life from his bleak childhood in Baltimore to his
brash entrance into professional baseball, from Boston to
New York and into the record books as the world’s most
explosive slugger and cultural luminary. Montville explores
every aspect of the man, paying particular attention to the
myths that have always surrounded him. Did he really hit the
“called shot” homer in the 1932 World Series? Were his home
runs really “the farthest balls ever hit” in countless
ballparks around the country? Was he really part
black—making him the first African American professional
baseball superstar? And was Ruth the high-octane,
womanizing, heavy-drinking “fatso” of legend . . . or just a
boyish, rudderless quasi-orphan who did, in fact, take his
training and personal conditioning quite seriously? At a time when modern baseball is grappling with
hyper-inflated salaries, free agency, and assorted
controversies, The Big Bam brings back the pure glory days
of the game. Leigh Montville operates at the peak of his
abilities, exploring Babe Ruth in a way that intimately, and
poignantly, illuminates a most remarkable figure.
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